by Peter Liney
I set off thirty minutes early, making up some excuse about not being sure about finding my way in the smoke and darkness. By the time I reached the rendezvous point, and despite taking it easy, I was still a good fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. I waited in the shadows, expecting to see several limos approaching, but what turned up was one limo sandwiched between two trucks.
I walked up to the limo as the window was sliding down, anticipating Ray, but there were a bunch of guys I didn’t know.
“Behind,” one of them said, indicating the following vehicle.
As I approached the back of the final truck the door swung open and there, surrounded by a bunch of real hard-looking sons-of-bitches, was Ray, squatting menacingly in his wheelchair.
Tell the truth, it gave me a bit of a fright—that thing had obviously been converted into battle mode: the framework extended all the way around, armor cladding bolted on, so he looked like he was encased in his own private shell. Furthermore, he was wearing a helmet with a computer-screen visor, night-vision glasses and microphone, presumably so he could orchestrate the whole thing.
Sure enough, he handed me an earpiece. “Put this on. And don’t fucking lose it.”
I did as asked, checking out the rest of the gang; no one met my gaze, no one was saying a word.
As we got closer to Infinity I thought it was time to remind Ray he’d promised me a weapon.
Grudgingly he turned to Van’s companion and nodded his head in my direction. The guy handed me a laser, a surprisingly modern one, with a heavy power-pack grip, though personally, I’ve always preferred good old-fashioned bullets.
“Thanks,” I said, just for once happy to be reunited with that reassuring tug on my inside pocket.
We stopped a few hundred yards down the street from Infinity and Ray checked the time again. “Six minutes,” he growled.
Immediately the tension inside the truck began to rise, as if we’d come under starter’s orders; everyone was looking all single-minded and serious, checking their weapons and kit.
“You sure you can trust this guy?” Ray asked me.
“With my life,” I told him.
He grunted like there was no one in the world he’d trust with that. “Okay, let’s go,” he said into his microphone. “Take it slowly.”
We didn’t go as a convoy. The larger truck headed off first, followed by the limo thirty seconds or so later, and we finally moved off another thirty seconds after that. As we turned into the Infinity entrance, the other two were waiting in line and a couple of Specials were lowering their health masks to talk to the guys in the front truck.
I gotta say, Jimmy was every bit as good as his word. We’d synchronized watches before he left and the explosion went off literally to the second. There was a loud kerrumph! over toward the sea and the air flashed and rippled out to the horizon and instantly every light in the Infinity building flickered and dimmed.
That was it: the critical moment, the unknown element I’d put so much faith into, that I’d repeatedly assured Ray would give us the edge. Everything depended on what the emergency generator could and couldn’t handle—on what Infinity was about to lose. I was hoping for something close to a blackout, panic perhaps, maybe even people deserting their posts, but if I had to choose one moment when I realized our plan was about to go awry, that was it.
Some things were extinguished: lights in the main building, spotlights overlooking the lawn, even the gate office was left at the mercy of something close to darkness. At the same time a couple of things came on that weren’t there before, and one that I instantly knew meant big trouble.
There’d been this green neon sign flashing as we’d turned in:
WELCOME TO INFINITY
PLEASE BE PATIENT WHILE THE SPECIALS ADMIT YOU AND IF NECESSARY SCAN OR SEARCH YOUR VEHICLE
However, with the loss of grid power, another sign, pulsing bright red, instantly appeared in its place:
RED ALERT!
BY THE READING OF THIS NOTICE YOU AUTOMATICALLY ACCEPT ANY SECURITY MEASURES TAKEN BY INFINITY AND ABSOLVE THE COMPANY AND ITS ASSOCIATES OF ANY FUTURE LEGAL ACTION
I didn’t know exactly what Ray’s gadgetry was capable of—what he was seeing on his visor—but suddenly he looked really alarmed.
“Shit! They’re scanning us!”
No sooner had he said it, and God knows why, the guys in the front truck panicked and started shooting. The two Specials fell to the ground.
“No! No! What the fuck’re you doing?” Ray screamed into his microphone. He hesitated for a moment as if not sure whether to go on or not, but when there was no reaction from the office he decided to chance it. “Go!” he screamed. “Go, go!”
For some reason, the first truck—our main one, with most of the guys in it—stayed where it was, and the limo was forced to pull out and go around it. We followed immediately, speeding in the direction of the main building with Ray shouting and cursing at everyone. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to have gone: blasting our way in, a fire-fight threatening at any moment. Infinity’s loss of power and the ensuing chaos was supposed to have been our opportunity to take them by surprise.
Behind us, the main truck still hadn’t moved.
“Frank, what the fuck are you doing?” Ray screamed at the driver. “Frank . . . ? What? I can’t understand a word you’re saying! What?”
At that moment, and to our utter astonishment, the truck suddenly blew up, spraying fire and wreckage in every direction.
“Fuck!” shouted Ray, yanking off his headset as if he’d caught some of it in his ear.
“What happened?” Van asked.
“I don’t know! They got scanned and blown up—he was talking about ‘swelling’ or something, then they started screaming—”
The limo in front of us suddenly faltered, coughed and bucked, then came to a halt like it had run out of gas. We almost slammed into the back of it.
Instantly Ray was screaming again, “Go back! Go back!” at our driver.
And sure enough, we hadn’t reversed more than twenty-odd yards before the limo also exploded with that same sense of erupting from within: as though pressure had been created inside to a point where everything simply tore apart. A piece of heavy debris, maybe the back axle, hurtled straight at us, smashing through the windshield and killing our driver before he had a chance to move.
“Oh fuck!” Ray wailed.
“Get out!” Van shouted, knowing we were next—that the scan was locking onto us and the truck was starting to tremble, to creak and strain.
The incredible thing was, however it was being generated, it worked on everything: I could feel this pressure, this sense that the space inside my body was starting to fill, the bones of my ribcage expanding, my skull starting to crack. The back door swung open and I made a dive for it, but I wasn’t alone. The floor beneath our feet moved, a ramp projected straight out into the air and landed with a crash on the ground and instantly Ray shot forward, knocking people aside.
One guy ended up on the pavement, hitting his head with a real thump and lying there out cold, but the others managed to get out safely and started running back in the direction of the gate—however, a group of Specials burst out of the main building, cutting us off with a wall of laser-fire.
For the first time in many years I pulled out a gun and started shooting, and I gotta say, these new weapons are something else. They take all the skill out of hitting your target; you don’t even have to worry too much about aiming, just point in the general direction and the software does the rest. Mind you, it wouldn’t be a lot of use if you wanted to fire a warning shot at someone. I took out three Specials in the same number of seconds and not one of them was actually in my sights.
There was this loud report only feet behind me—it actually made me jump—and the door from where more Specials had been about to emerge more or less exploded. I turned around and was not in the least bit surprised to see Ray had cannons mounted in the armrests of his chair. That
was why that thing was so squat and stable: to combat recoil. He fired again, and this time the foyer of the building took a direct hit. Jesus, perhaps we were going to get out of this after all.
But my optimism was hopelessly misplaced: a large group of Specials suddenly came streaming over from the gate, directing more bullets and lasers our way, and I realized why the gate always looked undermanned: there had to be a tunnel from there to the main building. One of our guys went to the ground, another, right next to me, got just about cut in two.
“Shit!” Van groaned. I thought it was ’cuz he realized we were cut off, that we were on the losing side of things, but then he went down too, that big muscular frame of his as vulnerable as any to a bullet or laser. He must’ve got off five or six rounds before his face finally collided with the ground and he stopped moving.
“You fuck! You fucker!” Ray screamed. I turned, thinking he was angry at the enemy, at how they’d just slain his number-one man, but it was me he was so furious with.
“I should’ve known! Anything to do with you, you fucking loser!”
Thankfully, I saw the way he was maneuvering his wheelchair to line up the armrests and dived to one side, scrambling away on my hands and knees as two missiles whooshed inches over my head and across the lawn, ending up blowing a hole in the fence.
Another of our guys got cut down and as far as I could see, there were now only three of us left. Ray decided he’d had enough, ramming his joystick forward and shooting off toward the breach in the fence, the one other guy left running hell for leather after him.
“No!” I called after them, knowing all too well what was about to happen.
Sure enough, Infinity might’ve only been on emergency power, but they must’ve decided long ago that under such circumstances, the growlers would take priority, ’cuz once again those mounds began to rise up out of the ground and silver shapes appeared out of the smoky darkness, moving at incredible speed as they went racing toward the intruders.
Even from where I was, and with the spotlights out, I could sense Ray’s shock. His chair wobbled for a moment as if he was about to overbalance, but to his credit, he held it together and kept going, weaving from side to side, blasting his cannon. He took out a couple of them, leaving nothing but strewn piles of flaky junk, but the guy running after him wasn’t so lucky.
It hadn’t really occurred to me ’til then that the guy was Van’s sidekick, but I wasn’t altogether surprised; he’d always had that look about him, that he’d find a way of surviving, of sneaking away while others did all the dirty work or dying. Mind you, he had it all wrong this time. He was frantically following in Ray’s wake, doing his best not to get isolated, leaping over the occasional growler wreckage, firing his laser indiscriminately, and it was probably that, a programmed response to any threat, that provoked several of those pursuing Ray to turn on him instead.
He managed to shoot one of them, dodged his way around another, but the damn thing just turned on a dime and sped after him like a heat-seeking missile, all the while making that eerie howling and growling sound.
There’s nothing very scientific about it once they get to you: they just rip you to pieces, as simple as that. The pursuing growler was alongside him in seconds, snarling and snapping, then it just leapt at him and with one crunch from those huge metallic jaws took off his leg just above the knee.
Jesus, I never seen anything like it—nor do I want to, not ever again. The guy thudded to the ground, screaming at the top of his voice, and several other growlers were on him at once, sinking their teeth into every part of his body, wrenching with those massive jaws, tearing him limb from limb, stripping him bare, reducing him to nothing but a scattering of finely chopped blood and bone.
A couple of Infinity bullets thudded into the ground beside me, a laser actually singed my parka and I realized I was completely cut off, that I had no other choice but to run the gauntlet myself. I set off toward the hole in the fence as fast as this old hulk of a body could carry me, praying the growlers were sufficiently distracted by dismembering the guy and their pursuit of Ray to worry about me.
Ray’d just about made it to the fence, in fact, I thought he’d gone through, that he’d escaped, but as I got closer, I saw he’d checked, that he was spinning around, lining up those cannons again. He hit a couple of growlers, but they were immediately replaced by others and soon I saw the flash of a laser and realized he’d pulled out his hand weapon and was firing that as well.
I blundered past what remained of Van’s sidekick, praying I wouldn’t attract the attention of the growlers, but two of them immediately broke away and started to give chase. Jesus, they were fast! I tell ya, it was like having an express train after you.
One of Ray’s pocket missiles swept by only feet away—I didn’t know whether he was trying to hit the growlers or me. I couldn’t understand why he hadn’t kept going when he’d reached the fence—surely he hadn’t stayed to save me? Up ahead, I could see him clearer now, maneuvering his chair left and right, lining himself up for another shot.
I turned around and blasted one of the two pursuing growlers, blowing its head right off. It stopped dead, there in the middle of the lawn, one foot raised, like some bizarre sculpture. I also managed to shoot a leg off the other one, but you know, Jimmy was right: it just checked for a moment as if reprogramming itself, then continued after me on three limbs. Worse still, behind it, I could see more of the group that had obliterated Van’s sidekick leave his remains and join the chase.
The three-legged growler was rapidly gaining. I took another shot at it, and again, desperately trying to keep it at bay . . . and then—Jesus, I almost screamed out in fear!—my laser died on me.
Even in that moment, I knew why: Ray had given me a laser with an almost empty power-pack so that, when the operation was over and the time came, it’d be that much easier to kill me.
Instantly my three-legged pursuer lengthened its pneumatic stride and was at my side. I tried to kick the damn thing, but it dodged me with ease; I made what I thought was a sudden swerve, but it barely hesitated. What the hell could I do? Its huge jaws started to open in a deathly smile revealing four rows of fearsome teeth—and yet when it went to bite me, to tear into one of my legs, its mouth wouldn’t open enough and it just kind of nudged me. It tried again, but with the same result. Obviously there was a malfunction somewhere—maybe it’d been damaged by laser-fire? Whatever the explanation, I couldn’t tell you how grateful I was for the occasional frailties of technology.
Despite the growler still occasionally digging at my leg, I finally managed to reach the fence as a little wild laser-fire resumed from the main building, I guessed ‘cuz they couldn’t see that well and didn’t want to take any chances. Ray was reversing back and forth, the wheelchair’s engine screaming, and finally I realized what’d happened. He hadn’t been covering my retreat; the wires from the broken fence had got tangled up in his wheels.
Don’t ask me why, but I went to free him.
“Fuck off!” he shouted.
“I’m trying to help!”
I guess he saw it was true ’cuz he shut up, but he was clearly still as mad as hell at me.
I wrenched at the wire, twisting it this way and that and doing my best to tug it free, but all his to-ing and fro-ing had really got it tangled.
“Come on!” he screamed, peering over my shoulder.
I glanced behind me to see half a dozen or more growlers bearing down upon us, all gnashing and snarling, obviously having nothing wrong with their jaws. I turned back to Ray and out of sheer desperation tried to lift him out of the chair.
“You can’t!” he cried, “not with the armor! I’m bolted in!”
You think about those moments, what you’d do in that position, but you never know ’til it happens. I stared into his horror-stricken face, my half-brother, partially my own flesh and blood, knowing he was about to die either alone or accompanied by me, and turned and ran through the fence toward the bus
hes at the far side of the road.
I had tried to save his life, but if I thought that counted for anything, I was wrong, ’cuz I suddenly felt this real thud in my right buttock, like someone had kicked me as hard as they could, and I knew he’d shot me: that his last action in life had been to try to kill me.
I fell to the ground but I guess he must’ve known I wasn’t dead ’cuz he kept on firing, and yet within seconds all that pneumatic clank-clank, the growling and howling, converged behind me and there followed the kinda high-pitched scream I would never have associated with Ray.
They were all over him, tearing at his body in a frenzy of flashing teeth and snapping jaws. I tried to struggle up, knowing I’d be next, but I was in too much pain to do more than wriggle a few inches, then an inch or two more, the noises behind me—the crunching of bones, the ripping of flesh—spurring me on. Yet suddenly I heard a noise unlike any I’d ever heard before: it was like a giant balloon popping underwater, or a hugely overweight jumper smacking against the sidewalk. I knew immediately what it was: the growlers had bitten through those swollen legs of Ray’s and the damn things had exploded.
I drove myself forward another few inches, pivoting on my elbows, straining with every muscle, but it was hopeless, as soon as they’d finished with Ray they’d be over for me.
Again I glanced over my shoulder. Jesus, you’ve never seen so much blood—the whole surrounding area was awash with the stuff, and it was dripping off everything. The growlers had ripped through the armor as easily as they had Ray’s body and now, their job done, were just standing there and scanning for any other threats to their masters. As one they turned and moved toward me with that familiar slurping pneumatic clank and a renewed chorus of howling, and I scrambled and scratched at the ground, my fingers bleeding, trying to will my damaged body away.
