Yap locked the brakes.
Jameson’s seat belt assaulted him again.
* * *
“Out, out, out!” he shouted. “Set perimeter security!” The Marines of One Troop spilled out onto the ground, exhausted and dinged up, but still switched on and game, weapons raised, encircling the area quickly, while Jameson dashed to the second truck. And what he found was – it was good and crashed, not just into glass, but into a huge V of steel girders. Worse, when he stuck his head in, he found the Tunnelers had injuries, both in front and in back. They appeared minor, but still.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered. Not what they needed now.
When he popped back out, Croucher was there to greet him. “Well?” the colour sergeant said, cradling his weapon.
Jameson looked around. “No way we’ll all fit in one truck. Let’s try to winch it out.”
“On it.” In less than a minute, Croucher had directed Yap in maneuvering their own truck into position, got the hook and cable free from the winch, and secured it on the rear axle of the crashed vehicle. It was only a minute, but even in that time, the chaos around them seemed to be growing. Jameson felt his nerves tingle – like something was coming for them. He kept scanning the streets.
“Go,” Croucher radioed to Yap.
Yap pulled forward, the cable went taut, and the crashed truck emerged from the shattered glass and bent steel of the building. Up front, its engine roared to life. Jameson allowed himself a smile at Croucher. They’d done it. Then the freed truck lurched, as it started to back out onto the street under its own power – and the whole fore end collapsed, over the top of a snapped front axle.
“Son of a bitch,” Jameson spat.
He turned and scanned the street for other options.
Some kind of very unwelcome movement caught his eye from up the road, directly to the north.
“Oh, no, not possible…” he muttered.
But it was possible – and he knew it was true when he heard the first rifle shots from behind him. One Troop was engaging, shooting around him, firing into a knot of palsied but hurtling figures, a classic runner pack, tear-assing down the open street like Olympic sprinters set free out of the blocks, without a care in the world. Periodically one would break off to leap on a fleeing living person to one side or the other, taking them down amid screams and now completely unrestrained panic.
“Fuck me,” Jameson shouted to Croucher, raising his rifle. “How the fuck did they get here this fast!?”
“Not a Scooby!” Croucher shouted back, using the old Cockney rhyming slang for clue – and triggering off rounds from his own weapon as he stepped slowly backward. “We were fucking driving flat-out.”
In seconds all or almost all of the runners were down, either destroyed by the Marines’ concentrated fire, or just distracted and gorging on screaming civilians. And in only about five seconds more, another pack appeared behind them, also from due north. Looking around, Jameson realized at least the school kids had gotten away, to somewhere presumably safer.
But the dead were here – seriously here.
The Marines and Tunnelers had to get the hell off the street. Jameson dropped his empty mag, ran to the back of the ruined truck, pulled open the rear gate, and shouted, “Out, out, out!” Then he hit his radio: “One Troop, we are leaving the fucking area! Protect the civvies, collapse back inside this structure! Off the street, off the damned street!”
Faster than he’d dared hope, it was all happening, and both groups disappeared into the smashed-out glass front walls of the lobby. In seconds, it was just him and Croucher as rear guard, but as they turned to leg it, Croucher said, “Oi, Major,” and pointed skyward.
Against his better judgment, Jameson looked straight up the curving glass-and-steel surface of the building. For some reason he hadn’t seen it until now – maybe it was too close, or he’d just been too distracted. But now it was totally obvious, and unmistakable. “Oh, you gotta be kidding me…” he muttered. But they could hear the screams and hissing hot on their necks now and raced inside, underneath the now totally distinctive diamond-shaped steel struts, and past a plaque that read:
THIRTY ST. MARY AXE
Jameson vaguely knew that was the official name of this 180-meter, 41-story, glass-and-steel, unmistakably phallus-shaped building, which was also one of the most conspicuous and iconic features of the London skyline.
But everyone just called it the Gherkin (i.e. pickle).
And now Jameson, the eighteen surviving Marines of One Troop, and an equivalent number of Tunnelers, were all leaping up flight after flight of stairs toward the top of it.
And it was here they were going to have to Alamo up.
100 Agent Smiths
South London – Surbiton
“This thing looks like a Winnebago had sex with a gardening truck.”
“Yeah – bad sex.”
“Ha. Seriously.” Pred laughed as he rumbled the truck over a not particularly well-paved road in a slightly grim residential area of southeast London. “Maybe that’s why the steering wheel’s on the wrong side.” The Pinzgauer truck they rode in was a six-wheeled utility vehicle widely used by the British military. It had a peculiar blunt-nosed shape to it, with a long rectangular canvas-covered bed in back. It definitely wasn’t the most masculine or muscular thing on the road.
“Remember that safari truck the Russians had?”
“Like it was yesterday.”
“There,” Juice said, pointing.
Pred followed his finger, and turned off a residential street, middling-thick forest opening up ahead and to the left. At the end of the road, they could see a big warehouse-like structure, with high netting strung up between it and the trees. Evidently there was an outdoor paintball field adjacent to the indoor arena.
“This Wesley’s idea of close?” Pred boggled. They’d been driving the better part of an hour.
Juice shrugged. “Everything’s relative.”
“Yeah. We did just come from Chicago. Via Somalia.”
Juice spat out the window.
As they approached the building and pulled up into the empty parking lot out front, the painted sign on the front of the structure became visible. It showed a green cartoon figure with an eyeball hanging loose and outstretched arms. The text underneath read:
ZOMBIE PAINTBALL
“Oh, you gotta fucking be kidding me,” Pred boggled again.
Juice shook his head. LT Wesley had a real sense of humor. As they rolled to a stop and looked down from the big sign, they could also now see a small group of about four people out front in the dimness under the overhang – pulling and yanking on the front door, which was evidently locked.
“That doesn’t look good,” Juice said.
“Yeah,” Pred said. “No. Let’s go around back. I don’t like parking this thing in public view anyway.”
“Yeah. Canvas roof, no key for the starter.”
As usual, the two were perfectly in sync.
* * *
Juice popped the sheer steel emergency-exit door in the back of the building with his Halligan bar, and the pair slipped in silently, rifles up, weapon-mounted lights clicking on, instantly tactical and ghost-like again.
The first thing Pred’s light fell on inside was the face of a zombie. He eased off his trigger as he recognized it as a painted cardboard cut-out. They were actually in the paintball arena itself, finding themselves in the absurd position of having to clear a maze full of zombie cut-outs – as well as 3D mannequins, all of them elaborately decorated with blood and gunk, plus wearing paintball masks and goggles. The masks were strung with bits of cloth, teeth, and random crap.
“I swear to God I’m gonna jackknife-powerbomb Wesley’s ass when we get back,” Pred muttered.
“I’ll pin him to the mat for you,” Juice said.
Peering in all directions, identifying and dismissing non-threats as they appeared and receded in the cones of their lights, Juice figured when this place
was operating, live employees would stumble around back here in zombie garb, but with masks for protection from the players’ paintballs. Even without the live-action “zombies,” the arena was close, dark, twisty, spooky, and basically weird as shit. And they were having to flow through it, clearing the area like it was a real target structure.
“Figure the guns are stored up front?” Juice whispered.
“Dunno,” Pred said, stepping through and around big paint-stained barriers that were presumably used for cover during games. “I just want to get the hell out of here.”
A few minutes later, they had pushed through a blackout curtain, out of the maze of the arena, and into a front-office and lobby area, which had some natural light. The two split up to clear it, and seconds later Juice announced he’d found the storage room. He hit the lights as Pred ducked and stepped in, lowering his rifle. Two walls were lined with racks of vertically stacked paintball guns, while a shelving unit at the far end held what looked like cases of paintballs. Another shelf on the near side had small air tanks with butt-stocks affixed to their ends, with much bigger compressed-air canisters sitting on the floor.
“Jackpot,” Juice said. “Even a handcart.”
But Pred went over and picked up one of the little air tanks, felt the weight, then checked the tiny gauge at the neck. The needle rested on zero. He spot-checked a few others – all empty. “Goddammit.”
“Not a problem,” Juice said, checking the gauge on one of the big compressed-air tanks on the floor. “These are full. We just move a little air around, then we’re out of here.”
Pred gave him a dark look. “This mission is stupid.”
Juice shrugged. “Hey, I’ll take cardboard zombies.”
Pred just grunted and muttered something inaudible.
“And no Russians trying to murder us.” Juice got to work, happily filling air canisters.
Pred sat down on a crate, sulked, and watched the door.
* * *
A half-mile away, a knot of hunched figures, all civilians, slunk quickly and quietly through the thin strip of forest that bordered the residential streets of Surbiton.
“This way,” muttered their leader, a fifty-something south London geezer named Ronnie. “I heard an engine. Come on.”
Vivian shook her head, but turned to follow her brother-in-law. From behind, she regarded Ronnie’s “skullet” – a bald head with long white hair just in back. He looks like one of the dead already, she thought, never really having liked the man. She also shoved back when one of Ronnie’s mates from down the pub bumped into her. They were picking up too many people, having originally just started with family.
But there was little she could do about it.
She pushed ahead and hissed in Ronnie’s ear. “Should we be heading north? They say the Wall fell down there.”
Ronnie spat. “I don’t care what they say. I know what I seen with my own eyes. Anyway, where we’re going’s still south of the river. And it’s the one place I know we’ll be safe.”
“And you sure you can get us in?”
Ronnie’s hand went to his pocket, fingering something heavy and lumpy inside. “Bastards should have been smart enough to take these off me when they sacked me and sent me packing. But it’s too far to walk. We need a car, and one with petrol in.”
With this, they reached the edge of the treeline, which was ringed with some kind of high netting. Pushing through it, they could see a big warehouse-like structure with a parking lot in front. And they could also see people running past – first a handful, and then several more, then thickening up. Some were running toward the big building, others away from it.
“Come on,” Reggie said. “We’re going to look out for us – and we’re going to survive. Even if nobody else does.”
“I need a piss,” Vivian said. “Catch you up.”
She turned and retreated far enough into the trees to be out of sight of the others, as well as the structure and parking lot, then dropped her pants and squatted down beside a tree. She tried to breathe, and relax enough to urinate, but it took a minute. It was cool, quiet, and damp in the forest around her.
Her head only spun on her neck at the last possible second, eyes wide with panic as a hurtling figure bowled her over onto her back. She tried to scream, but failed, as frenzied teeth bit into her own mouth, like the cannibal rape-and-murder version of a French kiss, and she sensed as much as saw the dark flash of other running bodies leaping over the top of both her…
And the frenzied dead man gorging on her face.
* * *
“What the heck is that?” Juice said, looking up from his tanks.
Pred was still sulking, looking like he didn’t care. Juice arched his eyebrows at him. “Okay, okay, I’ll check it out.” He pushed his gigantic bulk off the crate, cradled his rifle and headed out of the storage room. As he moved through the lobby, he could now clearly hear frenzied banging on the door.
He shook off his lethargy, got his game face on, and moved to the windows at the front of the lobby, pulling the edge of the blind away to peer out. Outside, there were bodies running in all directions – but predominantly coming from the south, or southwest.
“Huh,” he muttered to himself. “That’s weird.”
“What’s going on?” This was Juice on the radio.
“Stand by,” he said. But now the banging on the outside of the door had redoubled, and as Pred moved back behind it, he could see it was actually in some danger of cracking, or even being shoved out of its frame. He ground his jaw, exhaled, and moved his gloved left hand from his rifle’s foregrip to work the locks. When he grabbed the handle and pulled it open, a knot of panicked civilians tumbled inside at his feet.
“Hey!” he bellowed. “Goddammit!”
They began jostling to get up, and trying to scramble around him to get inside – but Pred let his weapon fall on its sling, picked up bodies with both hands, and started shoveling them back outside. In a few seconds, he had gotten the doorway clear, stepped outside, and yanked the door shut behind him.
Instantly, panicked people were trying to fight their way around him and back inside.
“Dudes – what the fuck?” Pred palmed a man’s face like it was not so much a basketball as a softball, and shoved him over onto the deck and ten feet back, then forearm-shoved another in the same direction. But now there was a middle-aged woman trying to squirm under his left arm, and he didn’t quite know how to deal with her. “Ma’am… ma’am, please…” As he gripped her upper arm and tried to hang on gently, he also scanned the area all around the front of the building. And as manic as it had suddenly and unexpectedly gotten…
There were also definitely non-living people in the mix.
But the living greatly outnumbered them, so the few obvious runners were chasing them around like they were a flock of swarming chickens, switching targets constantly as they ran by, and not really catching anybody. But their presence – their crazed milky eyes, blood-covered chins, grasping hands, and high rate of speed – was enough to drive the living into a mindless panic. Pred wasn’t sure he didn’t prefer the dead to the living in this scenario. The former were predictable, and relatively calm, and couldn’t open doors. Plus he could shoot them.
“Ma’am! Goddammit!” Finally he was forced to pin both her arms behind her back and hold her with his left hand while he fended off others with his right. The fending quickly turned into punching, though he tried not to thump anybody harder than necessary. They just didn’t get the goddamned message. And they kept coming.
“Okay, what the hell’s going on out there?” Juice sounded genuinely flummoxed, plus worried.
“Yeah,” Pred said, grabbing the shoulder of a young man who had inexplicably grabbed onto his rifle, then hurled him a good twenty feet this time. “Remember when Neo had to fight a hundred Agent Smiths?”
“No.”
“In the first Matrix sequel.”
“There were no Matrix sequels.”
“Goddammit. Dude!” With just his fingertips, he throat-punched a woman in a too-short skirt who had just raked her fingernails across his cheek. She dropped to the deck, gagging. Pred took Juice’s point – there should have been no Matrix sequels. “You know what I’m talking about.”
“Yeah.” Juice sounded both sad and tired. “But that whole fight was dumb. Neo just flew away at the end. Which he could have done any time. He wasn’t even protecting the Oracle, or buying time, or anything. There were absolutely zero stakes in that fight, which is why nobody gave a shit.”
“True. True.” At this point, Pred grit his teeth, picked someone up entirely, and threw him sideways into three other people, knocking them all down in a pile. This seemed most efficient, and possibly now necessary.
“It looked cool, but that was it. Left you totally cold.”
Pred took a breath. “You done in there yet?”
* * *
Juice was indeed just finishing, having loaded the filled-up air tanks, as well as half a dozen paintball guns, and two cases of paintballs, onto the cart, when he looked up to see Pred returning, breathing hard.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Barricaded the door. Should hold a minute or two.”
“Let’s go.” Juice put his shoulder down and started shoving the heavily loaded cart out the door and back toward the arena, Pred leading the way, rifle up again. But they both stopped dead even as they stepped out in the lobby, cocking their heads. The sound of a vehicle, engine noise screaming and rising in volume fast, was approaching from outside.
Juice swiveled his head to look back at the air canisters.
Then he put his head down and shoved the cart forward for all he was worth, Pred dropping his weapon to haul on the front of it, both of them accelerating to a run, as they passed the blackout curtain into the arena.
The entire front of the building exploded behind them.
Bad Blood
London – The Gherkin
Jameson slumped up against the wall of the deserted floor of offices and tried to get his breath back. Running ten flights of stairs in full combat kit was still, just as it had been in Dusseldorf, absolutely no fun – especially after the truck crash and frantic fight out in the street. Eventually they’d all stopped climbing, not so much because they thought they were up to a safe height above street level.
ARISEN_Book Thirteen_The Siege Page 22
