Strange Temple

by John Lilley

  ‘I can’t see what’s going on down there, there’s too much smoke from that burning car, but I think five cars lifted off and hid behind that large central complex. There may have been more survivors than I thought. I want you to place the next rocket just behind the complex, OK?’ said Lenox.

  ‘I dunno boss, those hovercars pack a punch and they can be on us in seconds. They’ll know exactly where that last rocket came from. It’s OK for you hiding over there, but the launcher is really exposed,’ said Barry.

  ‘Have we seen any hostile activity? Well, have we? No. Usually, they would be pounding us immediately. I'm telling you, they've had some sort of big problem down there, maybe a virus or something. They're screwed, and there’s only a few of them left,’ said Lenox.

  ‘Virus, I don't want no virus. You’ve seen what those critters that Central engineered did to some of the trouble areas in large cities. Their bodies digested themselves from the inside out, like pouring salt on a slug,’ said Barry.

  ‘Look you dolt, that Fortress holds more beer than you can dream of. We could live out our lives in comfort. If we’re the first in there, we can easily hold off the rest with all that military hardware. Would you like your own hovercar? With that kind of hardware we could wipe out the Comancheros, you’d like to do that, wouldn’t you? I know this will take some time to sink into that thick skull of yours, but believe me we’ve just won the lottery of life, big-time. Now get back over to that launch pad and send another one over,’ ordered Lenox.

  Neil landed his cars as near as possible to Bruce’s, and once they were back out on the apron, they took stock.

  ‘First, we’ll move the cars again just to put off their aim. We can roll them right up against the central complex without taking off. Then you and I will take a jeep and go back to the store for some more goodies,’ said Bruce over the intercom.

  ‘The cars all have three 50 cal cannons, we could take the fight to them,’ said Neil.

  ‘No, we just can’t risk it. I for one have never been in that situation. Imagine if one of us got shot down?’ said Bruce.

  Rolling in formation, they moved their cars across the apron to the far side of the central buildings.

  ‘OK, so just what is it that you want from the store?’ said Neil.

  ‘Well, I think we could get more food in, but if possible I’d like one of those more powerful communication rigs, you know, the ones that have their own high altitude drones,’ said Bruce.

  ‘Good call buddy. Hey, you know what, there’s something we’ve not put on the list: fuel for the cars,’ said Neil

  ‘Oh shit, shit, shit, how could we have been so stupid?’ said Bruce.

  ‘Well, we’re used to someone else worrying about that stuff. All the hangars have refuelling facilities, we just need to roll the cars around to the nearest one,’ said Neil.

  ‘OK, we’ll both roll over to Hangar Four and refuel. I think it’s out of sight of Gold Hill. Then we’ll both drive back to stores to pick up my drone,’ said Bruce.

  They were almost at the hangar when the second rocket ripped into the apron just twenty yards from where they’d initially landed.

  ‘I don’t see much smoke Barry, I think you just struck concrete this time,’ said Lenox.

  ‘That rocket went exactly where you wanted it,’ said Barry.

  ‘OK Barry, you know how those rocket kits usually come with a drone, well can you get it airborne?’ said Lenox.

  ‘OK, but the one we have looks a bit shot-up. I’ll get onto it, but it could take a while,’ said Barry.

  The fuelling stop took less time than Neil and Bruce anticipated. Only their original car needed a significant top-up. They were reluctant to leave the boys in the hangar while they raided the store for the last time, but the kits that Bruce wanted would have required two sets of hands to get into the jeep.

  ‘OK, your majesty, drone airborne. Here’s the console,’ said Barry as he handed over the controller and screen to Lenox.

  The drone was on its last legs, but Lenox flew it down to the Fortress and over the perimeter wall with no difficulty. He headed for the central buildings and confirmed his suspicions that the cars had moved. The blackened impact of the second rocket marked the spot where he knew they’d been. So, what next? Where were they hiding, perhaps that nearby hangar? The drone was now flying out of sight so he was relying on radio echoes to keep it under control and its response rate suffered accordingly.

  In Hangar Four the boys were becoming restless. Jake was already out of his flight harness and walking around outside the car. Near the hangar doors, he could see what he assumed was another dead body. Curiosity got the better of him, and he walked across for a closer look. It was a young man he’d seen just a week before, in fact, the guy had ticked him off for riding his bicycle across one of the lawns. He was in the same state as the first dead guy: his eyes staring and his hand clutched at his throat. Jake’s gaze tracked down the length of the body. The guy’s rifle had fallen first and was now trapped beneath his legs. Jake decided that the rifle would be useful on their impending trip, so he decided to extract it from the corpse. As he did so, he heard a buzzing noise approaching the Hangar. Instinctively he clutched the rifle and knelt down between the body and the hangar door. The buzzing got louder. Jake gripped the rifle tighter and waited. He saw the drone’s shadow first, as it entered the hangar. It paused for a second or two to get its bearing then advanced on the fleet of hovercars. Jake raised the rifle as he’d seen his Dad do and pressed the sighting button. The kinetic feedback system guided the rifle towards the most likely target: the drone. Jake could now see it clearly in the rifle’s scope. The magnification of the scope held steady and showed the four-rotor drone dead-centre. There was something Jake didn’t like about this drone. He’d heard Bruce talking about picking up a drone from the store, but why waste time and fly it back here? He pressed the zoom button on the scope. The drone now filled the small screen and there in the middle of its camera nacelle was the red sickle symbol he’d been warned about. Without a further thought, he pulled the trigger. The assault rifle was actually longer than Jake’s body, he was just holding the trigger and stock grips with the butt sticking out over his shoulder. The rifle’s mechanism did dissipate much of the recoil energy of the shot, but still blew Jake off his feet and hard against the metal hangar door. The drone tipped slightly as the shock wave of the bullet passed by. Its microphone had not worked for many years, so Lenox assumed it was a problem with the signal because he’d effectively entered the Faraday cage of the metal hangar. The five hovercars were now directly beneath the drone.

  ‘Right Barry, I want the next rocket on these exact coordinates. Bring down the roof on these cars. I don’t want them getting away,’ commanded Lenox through his radio.

  He spun the drone around and headed for the exit, the gap between the huge hangar doors was an easy target in the midday sun. In the shadows of the doors, Jake was recovering from his recent knock-back. He saw the drone turning. That rifle was just too much for him. He looked at the pistol holster on the dead guy’s belt. His tiny hands just managed to hold the pistol's grip. He braced himself this time and looked down the barrel to line it up with the drone and squeezed the trigger. The pistol was in automatic mode, the first nine bullets spread out as it jumped higher and higher until Jake had to just let it go. Lenox could see the pistol flashes, but too late, one of the bullets destroyed a rotor, and the drone spun into one of the hangar doors and disintegrated.

  ‘Barry, when will the next rocket be ready?’ Lenox shouted into the radio mike.

  ‘Two minutes boss, just need to get myself clear,’ said Barry.

  Lenox pressed the launch button immediately. The blast from the rocket blew Barry off his feet and ignited his trousers. Homing in on the last known position of the drone the rocket exploded in the roof of the hangar bringing down tonnes of steelwork and twisted cladding. The hangar doors were blown off their tracks and jammed into the concrete of the
floor. Fortunately, Jake had managed to run back from the doors and get inside the hovercar before the rocket had hit.

  Bruce and Neil were returning under the shelter of the surrounding buildings. They’d seen the rocket the moment it left Gold Hill. The hangar doors had closed slightly compared with when they’d left it, but the jeep had plenty of room to get through. Bruce parked as close to the nearest hovercar as he could. They both jumped out and immediately began to load the gear into the car.

  ‘Those doors are jammed shut, so looks like we’ll have to blast our way out of here,’ said Neil.

  ‘Well you always wanted a go of those cannons,’ said Bruce.

  Neil strapped himself back into the seat of the car with the kids.

  ‘OK Neil, let’s see what you can do,’ said Bruce.

  Neil took off vertically with his three cars, hovering at twenty feet. He took hold of the weapons joystick, flipped the safety cover off and pressed the fire button. The whole car vibrated to the tune of the 50 cal cannons, the boys screamed in unison. A large section of the nearest hangar door blew away. Neil turned the cars from left to right, and more twisted metal fell from the doors before he released the fire button.

  ‘Good job Neil,’ said Bruce. ‘Enough room to get through if we go one at a time. Switch your drones to “follow mode” until we’re out,’

  ‘Will do buddy, after you,’ said Neil.

  The five cars filed out of the hangar and quickly gained altitude. The Fortress walls which had been their home for as long as they could remember were briefly beneath them. Everyone they’d known had gone in an instance. Ahead of them was the familiarity of the campsite, but that was all. They were heading into an unknown and insecure future, and the weight of that was already beginning to rest heavily on Bruce and Neil’s shoulders. Just out of their teens they were now well outside their comfort zones. Their only real chance of salvation now rested with the apparently dysfunctional entity called Central.

  18 A NEW START

  The six's first home after Central had picked them up was in Nevada. Their hastily prepared apartments were old crew quarters 300 feet underground at the military base where Central had made his home. At first, it was a great feeling for them to be somewhere where the outlaws could not get at them; they had all felt very exposed at the campsite, especially after the rocket attacks. Also, they no longer had to worry about where their next meal or drink was coming from, something which Neil and Bruce were very concerned about as they’d watched their supplies dwindle rapidly at the campsite. However, the reassuringly solid concrete walls of their bunker rapidly began to bore them. They spent most of their time in an old games room which contained some pool tables and a couple of ancient arcade video games.

  Central restricted access to the rest of the base, he claimed that much of it was derelict anyway and the bits that weren't, were full of dangerous machinery. He spoke to them every morning after breakfast. They all gathered around a small monitor in the games room for these short updates. Bruce and Neil had taken to asking when they could go to the surface at every opportunity. Central’s initial excuse for denial of this request was that the surface around the base was still mildly radioactive and that he was taking steps to rectify this by removing some of the topsoil. After several weeks of this same excuse, Bruce and Neil tried another tack: that they should be moved somewhere else which wasn’t radioactive. They escalated this request after a couple more days by smashing up all the pool cues. Each morning they awoke to find new ash cues in the racks, and each morning they broke them again. Next on their list were the breakfast plates. The young ones enjoyed this activity which consisted of lining the plates up on a shelf and throwing pool balls at them. The simulant orderly looked confused when he came in to clean up the first time, well, as much as his shop mannequin plastic face could express such emotions. After another week of the destructive activity, the plates were changed for paper ones, and the cutlery changed to plastic. However, Bruce and Neil had already stashed away a couple of the metal knives; Neil reckoned that he could open some of the doors in the banned areas with them. All they had to do was get through the two doors between them and the lift they’d been brought down in, how hard could that be?

  The orderly entered by a different door and Central only had video surveillance in the games room, so their activities went unnoticed. They worked at night after making an exaggerated performance of going to their rooms. The door locks proved too difficult, but by cutting away the wooden frames around the hinges, they eventually got them both open. The corridor after the second door was dark and the light switches did not work. There was a surveillance camera watching the lift doors, but its active-light was also not lit, and neither were the lift’s call-buttons. Bruce wondered if the whole section had been powered-down, but there was no real way of telling other than requesting the lift, which may then attract Central’s attention. After a few minutes further debate, Neil hesitantly pressed the lift request button; they both jumped as the lift doors opened immediately, it was already on their floor. They decided to take the young ones with them there and then so went back to their dorms and woke them all.

  The top lift button was marked ‘Surface’, but there were four other stops below the surface: Offices, Stores, Workshops and Hangar. The surface button had the radiation warning symbol alongside it, and Neil and Bruce wondered if Central had been telling the truth after all. They were both also thinking of the other stops. So when Neil suggested that they stopped at the Hangar on the way up, Bruce was instantly in agreement. He quickly pressed the “Hangar” button.

  At their selected floor the corridor outside the lift was in total darkness and once hey had all got out and the doors had shut they could not even see their hands in front of their faces. The little ones began to whimper, and Neil felt a small hand grab hold of his trousers. Bruce managed to find the lift button, and once its doors opened the lift car’s lighting brought some sighs of relief.

  Neil stood in the doorway to keep the light on while Bruce explored the corridor. He was gone for several minutes, and the young ones were beginning to get a bit clingy by the time he returned.

  ‘OK, this corridor turns a corner after about 50 yards, then after a further 20 yards there are some double doors which aren’t locked. They open into a large space, it must be the hangar, but it’s totally dark in there. I groped around and found some switches on the wall, but didn’t want to use them in case it alerted Central,’ said Bruce.

  ‘Well, we could continue to the surface and the radiation or try the lights in the hangar, those are our choices. I vote for the surface. I think that hangar may well be empty,’ said Neil.

  ‘Yeah, I think I’m with you on that,’ said Bruce moving inside the lift car. ‘Come on boys let’s see what’s up there.’

  The lift took a further two minutes to reach the surface; the air inside the car was becoming stale by the time the doors opened. This time the corridor outside the lift was lit, and they followed a sign which said “Reception”. After fifty yards and two flights of stairs, they arrived at an unmanned reception area. Beyond the reception desk, sunlight was streaming in through a double set of revolving glass doors. As their eyes adjusted, they could see some giant cacti just the other side of the doors and above them blue sky.

  ‘Hey, kick me if I’m wrong, but didn’t we leave the rooms at around 10 pm?’ asked Neil.

  ‘Sure did buddy, sure did. It looks like Central has been playing a few games with us,’ said Bruce.

  ‘Hey, there’s a jeep out there,’ squeaked Gene, pointing eagerly to the right of the cacti.

  ‘Shall we?’ enquired Neil, motioning towards the doors.

  Outside the heat was intense; the air seemed too hot to breathe. After spending weeks under artificial lighting, the sun’s rays burn instantly into their skin. The slight desert breeze felt like someone was holding a hairdryer to their faces, and they could feel the heat from the ground coming through the soles of their shoes.


  ‘Wow, this is just too much,’ said Neil.

  ‘Let’s check out that jeep,’ said Bruce.

  Moving past the giant cacti was painful in the intense heat. They were all sweating profusely by the time they reached the ancient vehicle. With no head gear they were forced to shade their eyes with their hands, but still had to squint to avoid the worst of the intense glare. Looking back, the reception building appeared very small, little more than the top of the lift shaft. Around them as far as the eye could see was a vast expanse of perfectly flat salt pan desert. There were no tire tracks around the jeep suggesting it had been there for some time. Closer inspection showed that the vehicle was little more than a rusting shell. The green paint had almost completely burnt away on the windward side and even the galvanised steel beneath was heavily pitted and rusting. Gene made the mistake of touching the door handle and withdrew his fingers sharply as the hot metal burned their tips. He immediately stuck them in his mouth and started to suck.

  Bruce put his hand on his shoulder: ‘OK little man?’ he said.

  Gene just nodded, and the other boys needed no more warnings as they continued their inspection of the jeep. Its upholstery was completely gone, just the steel springs remained.

  ‘Well boys, I don’t think we’ll get far in this,’ said Neil.

  Jake had walked a bit further away from the jeep and was staring into the distance, his hand shielding his eyes. The far distance was just a shimmering heat haze. As he looked a small black shape appeared, a round blob at first, which then resolved into two blobs; one above the other. Then as it got nearer, a third smaller blob appeared above the other two. The blobs continued to get larger, and the lowest blob had now split into two blobs. The whole thing now had that distinctive motion signature of someone walking. Jake blinked a few times and rubbed his eyes, but the blobs were still there. They merged into one distinctly recognisable shape, a human shape, but it still appeared to be floating above the desert. He spun round.