by Alex Bobl
Philippe leaned his carbine up against the wall, pushed me aside and grabbed the steel box with his strong hairy hands.
"Where d'you want it?" he asked standing up.
"On the window sill," I glanced at Mira and nodded. "In a moment. We'll leave now."
"Where did Kathy get it from?" Philippe heaved the box onto the window and turned to me.
"She used to work for the FSA."
"For the FSA?" Philippe raised an eyebrow. He opened his mouth to speak but didn't have time to say anything.
His head exploded splattering the ceiling with blood and brain fragments. A burst from a pulse gun hit the room through the window shattering the walls and setting the bedclothes and floorboards on fire. In a cloud of dust from the ceiling, I rushed to Mira and covered her and the baby with my body.
The gun kept rattling until it shot off all the ammo inside the buggy I'd parked by the house. It looked like one of Blank's subordinates had decided to avenge his death.
"We need to get out of here," I urged, pulling Mira's elbow. "The ceiling could collapse any moment. Come quickly before they change the clip."
I helped her up and we ran out into the dark stairwell. From the street came a rustling of tires and the buzz of an electric motor. They must have moved the buggy to face the house's front door.
"The lamp's on the wall, Mark," I heard behind me.
"What about it?" I turned round. Mira pointed with her eyes to a glass bulb hanging on the wall. "Take it and let's go! Quick!"
She didn't let me take her hand and stepped back saying, "Don't take me, take the lamp."
I swallowed an expletive, then took the lamp off its hook. "Are you coming now?"
"I am. Turn it on."
"That's enough!" I lost my patience. "Let's go!"
I literally forced her down the stairs. I was afraid we wouldn't make it out of the house before the assailants got to us. If they met us by the exit, I wouldn't be able to defend us.
We walked downstairs and I headed for the window opening into the back yard when a voice stopped me.
"Master Specialist!" I heard from the street. "Come out now!"
I motioned Mira to the window and started noiselessly for the door.
"Don't try to escape! You don't have enough time!" Blank's voice kept shouting. "If you don't come out in three seconds, we'll take the house to bits stone by stone!"
What a jerk! How had he survived, I'd love to know? It must have been his somatic module reacting in time to inject an emergency adrenaline shot into his bloodstream allowing him to reach the surface.
"The lamp," Mira whispered behind me.
Her and her lamp! I looked back. Mira hadn't moved. She stood by the staircase pressing her daughter to her chest.
"One!" I heard from the street. "Two!"
"Don't shoot!" I shouted. "I'm coming out."
"You only need to turn the ring," Mira whispered at my back. "Then throw it at him."
I walked to the door, looked at the lamp and turned the ring on its base. A soft bluish light licked my face. The bulb heated up.
"Three!"
"I'm coming!" I swung the door open and hurled the lamp into the buggy where Blank sat in the driver's seat, the hatch open over his head.
He managed to leap out head first, like a champion swimmer in an Olympic pool, and somersault back onto his feet. The lamp hit the armor plate and the bulb cracked letting out a splash of bright light. With a loud hiss, the buggy disappeared in a cloud of steam.
Or not steam, maybe. A couple of seconds later the cloud was gone leaving oily stains on the armor. Blank was now ready for war, his body in a fighting stance, his hand squeezing a knife - the one I'd buried in his leg.
"I can't believe it!" he spat out. "You, throwing a thermite! It had to be your girlfriend who told you how to use it."
I had no idea what a thermite was, and I certainly didn't care.
Blank winced and pulled his head toward his shoulder as if stretching his neck muscles before a fight. But I didn't think that was the reason. He didn't look good. Not good at all. He'd lost his helmet; his pale face and neck were covered in swollen blue bumps, and the blood vessels forcing his thickened blood around looked like worms crawling under his skin.
I clenched my fists. Blank leaned forward but his tourniqueted thigh shook and he barely kept his balance, his knees giving way under him. He suppressed a cough and clenched his teeth. Then he breathed out spitting bluish blood clots.
"Remember biocyne and carula?" I asked lowering my hands.
He staggered and shuffled one foot trying to step forward.
"What do you know about their properties?" I insisted.
He collapsed onto his knees and tried to take a swing at me but let the knife go and dropped his head.
"You're as good as dead," I looked down at him. "The slime has killed you."
His eye vessels burst. Black blood poured out of his nose; more vessels were bursting darkening his face while veins as thick as a finger bulged on his neck.
Blank wheezed and fell on his back.
"You scumbag," I said quietly. "You've deserved this kind of death."
The sky shattered. Behind my back, Mira cried out in surprise - despite my orders, she'd walked out into the courtyard. I ran out into the street looking in the direction of the beacon and the Fort behind it. When I reached the turn for the port, I stopped, open-mouthed.
A fiery mushroom cloud rose over the Fort. It resembled a nuclear explosion but not quite: it lacked the initial flash and the shock wave that normally would blow the clouds away as it encircled the sky. It was as if the explosion had occurred somewhere else - not here on the island but between the worlds...
Point Apocalypse, the thought flashed through my mind. Neumann's theory had proven to be true. But - who had delivered the missile to the jumpgate?
The mushroom over the Fort had grown, changing shape and turning into a funnel. A low hum spread in the air as the clouds started moving slowly toward it as if someone had turned on a gigantic vacuum cleaner. The earth shook. The horizon began to fold.
I backed up and shouted to Mira telling her to take cover inside the house. I had no idea what was going to happen next: our continuum could collapse, or we'd be blown to smithereens or sucked into a black hole...
A moment later, the vortex had disappeared leaving a dark stripe in the sky. Claps of thunder came from the sea. The deformed horizon straightened up and took its usual place. The clouds diffused over the sky. I stared, bewitched, at the ocean where the island used to be. I could see nothing but waves.
The beacon stopped pulsating and went out. Immediately, the dark stripe in the sky disappeared. Slowly, I turned around. Mira hadn't had time to take cover in the house. She stood in the doorway holding our daughter.
"Mark? What happened?"
"Looks like your Dad was right."
"Right about what?"
"About his Point Apocalypse theory," I walked toward the house. "He suggested exploding a nuclear device in the jumpgate to disconnect Earth from Pangea."
"How is it possible?" Mira opened her eyes wide. "Can you really destroy the wormway with a bomb?"
You could have blown me over backward. Everything fell into place. My father had outsmarted them all.
"Remember the supposed container with the virus?"
She nodded.
"There was no virus. The container held a bomb - a tactical nuke. General Varlamov was the Fort's commander so it was part of his responsibility to nuke the Fort and its garrison in case of an emergency. If, for instance, Earth faced some sort of deadly threat."
I came to Mira and gently took the baby from her. My little girl was fast asleep, sniffing peacefully in her wraps.
"What's her name?" I sat on the stone doorstep.
Mira smiled. "Era," she lowered herself onto the step next to me.
"Era," I nodded looking into my daughter's face. "A new creature in a new world."
We heard
surprised voices in the street and raised our heads. People were walking out of the city, lots of them; they stopped on the hill before the turn for the port and looked west where the Fort used to stand.
I knew we were all thinking the same thing: Continent Anomalous was starting a new era.
Also by Alex Bobl
Memoria. A Corporation of Lies
(an Action-Packed Techno Thriller)
Those who own human memory, own the world. That's why the corrupt bosses of Memoria Corporation control the bombed-out streets of New York. And that's why Frank Shelby - once a humble citizen and now a murder suspect on the run - has to fight tooth and nail to unearth clues to Memoria's dirty secrets and avenge his loved ones.
"Hardcore action from start to finish"
"A well polished gritty dystopian novel"
"Interesting, spooky, intense"
"Reminds me of Blade Runner"
About the Author
Alex (Aleksei) Bobl is a Russia-based science fiction writer, author of 12 novels. An ex-paratrooper, he used his military knowledge and experience to write his debut novels for S.T.A.L.K.E.R., a bestselling science fiction action adventure series set in a post-apocalyptic Chernobyl.
After his initial success, Alex Bobl teamed up with his friend and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. co-author Andrei Levitski to create a SF project of their own. Entitled TechnoTma: The Dark Times, this action adventure series is set in a post-apocalyptic future where the Black Sea has dried out and the Crimea has become a major desert. The eight books of TechnoTma had a total print run of over 250,000 copies and have been translated into German and Spanish. Talks are now under way about translating TechnoTma into English.
Point Apocalypse is Alex's last science fiction book to date. His previous novel Memoria. A Corporation of Lies - a hard-boiled cyberpunk adventure set in a dystopian New York - is also available on Kindle.
Alex Bobl lives in Moscow with his wife and two boys and is currently working on his next book. You can follow its progress in Alex's blog, Obviously Incredible, as well as on Twitter and Facebook.
Table of Contents
Part 1. Prison World
Chapter One. The Jumpgate
Chapter Two. The Ferry Boat
Chapter Three. Questions
Chapter Four. The Raiders
Chapter Five. The Trigger Code
Chapter Six. New Identity
Chapter Seven. Comrades in Misery
Chapter Eight. King of the Forest
Part Two. Mind Games
Chapter One. The River
Chapter Two. God Loves the Infantry
Chapter Three. Jim
Chapter Four. Walking Around the Devil's Barn
Chapter Five. Long Time No See
Chapter Six. Metropolis
Chapter Seven. The Tables Turn
Part Three. The New Level
Chapter One. The Dream Is One Step Away
Chapter Two. No Way Out
Chapter Three. An Important Link
Chapter Four. As the Crow Flies
Chapter Five. Point Apocalypse
Also by Alex Bobl
About the Author
