by Phil Hurst
“You shouldn’t push Udan,” said Artur, who had come in from the auditorium and witnessed the end of the conversation. He leaned against a poster that was advertising the end-of-the-pier show, highlighting Fiona’s singing. His blue suit was still immaculate, which was strange given he had spent most of the previous night avoiding Unjudged patrols. “He could snap you in two if he wanted.”
“Are you still wearing that suit?” Jules asked.
“Don’t change the subject.”
“He’s right,” Udan agreed. He pretended to snap a twig between two clenched fists.
“He’d never get close enough,” Jules said. “I’m a fast little fucker.”
Artur smiled. “But could you hurt him?”
“I wouldn’t have to,” Jules said. “I’d just run around and around until he got dizzy.”
“I don’t get dizzy,” Udan said.
“Udan,” Artur glared at his comrade while he spoke. “I’m trying to help you out here. Try not to sound so fucking stupid.”
Jules smiled at the older man. Artur was one of the older reckoners and was part of the first cohort of recruits following the installation of the Tumi government. It was Jules’ opinion that 10 years in the Navy and then three in the URC had blunted his edges. Jules heard stories of Artur chasing criminals across rooftops and through swamps. He had been one of the first into Hull during its reckoning and one of the last to leave once the job had been done. Artur could have retired this year but carried on. Technically, this was his last assignment, but Jules knew he’d been on his final mission for at least the past six.
Jules wagged his finger at Artur. “Remember your team-building training, Artur.”
“I take it back. Now he sounds like a genius.”
Wix shouted from inside the theatre and Jules walked past Artur. He was trying to make it look like he knew exactly what Wix was shouting about and that it was all part of his plan. The show of confidence was all for Udan’s benefit. Jules let the door swing shut behind him.
Jules entered an auditorium usually clad in darkness, and for the first time, he saw it naturally lit. Wix had done a good job of cutting a large hole in the ceiling. He was carefully abseiling down from the roof. Wix saw Jules and shouted something unintelligible.
The debris from Wix’s remodelling was all over the main seats and aisles. Jules stepped carefully over the chunks of roof, trying not to breathe in too heavily in case the dust that danced in the sunlight contained asbestos.
Only last night people were paying decent money to sit in those seats that were now covered in dust and splinters. Jules jumped on stage and moved behind the curtain. The scene was set for an opening number that would never happen, an extremely fake-looking Japanese garden. He found and pushed the button to open the curtains, and light flooded the stage.
Wix had reached the floor and was taking off his gear. “You could have told me,” the Scot boomed. “What a joke.” He ran a hand through his thick red hair, brushing the debris out of it.
“What’s a joke?”
“Cutting through that fucking roof,” Wix patted his chest. “No way there’s not asbestos in that.”
Jules watched the dust starting to settle. He hoped the URC health scheme would be able to repair any damage. “You’ll survive.”
Wix held out a gloved hand that was speckled with white fibres. “Fancy a sniff then?”
“The doctors will sort you out when we get back.”
“They fucking better had.”
Jules decided not to entertain any more of his squad members’ complaints. “Pass me the CB.”
Wix searched through a supply bag for what Jules needed. After a few more seconds, he found it and threw it to the stage. The covert beacon was a small locator device with a laser sight on it, designed to allow drones to find a safe entrance to any underground or covered location. Jules placed it on the stage and pointed the laser at the hole in the roof.
“What else is back there?” asked Wix, pointing to the stage behind Jules.
“More theatre crap,” said Jules. “Nothing of any use to us.”
Artur had drifted into the room again. Jules wasn’t aware he was there until he shouted to Wix. “Wix, see if there are any tools back there we might need to use.”
Jules stiffened: “Well, there are tools. It’s a stage.”
Wix jumped up on to the stage, ran past Jules and vanished backstage. Jules watched a timer count down on the CB. When it reached 30 seconds a Stork drone the size of a coffin, with a large case on its back, entered through the gap in the roof. It was dripping wet after escaping its hiding place under the sea, where the reckoners had planted it before they reached the town. A few crustaceans somehow hung on to it, but they fell off as it tilted before landing.
“That’s a lot more toys than I’d normally expect for a job like this,” said Artur. “Are you expecting World War Three?”
“I’m prepared,” replied Jules. He punched in a code and the case hissed before opening. Jules was delighted to see his cache again. “Get Udan and Wix in here.”
Artur radioed to the two other men as Jules took out the contents of the case and began to arrange them in size order on the stage.
In the case was a selection of four Dove-class anti-aircraft drones. The reckoner scientists designed them to take down surveillance drones and helicopters. If needed, they could be repurposed to attack ground targets, although they were less effective than the four Buzzard drones already installed along the pier.
“Four Doves won’t be enough to take the town,” Artur said.
“We’re not trying to take the town.”
“Then why are we here?”
“We’re a distraction.”
“Distractions get killed, Jules.”
“Not us.”
Udan and Wix entered from opposite ends of the room. Jules, breathless with excitement, waved them over and handed them drones. “Check the charge and power them up,” he said.
“Then what?” Wix asked.
“We’ll set them loose.”
When Jules had been to university in Southampton, he had specialised in the study of ethics behind drone warfare. His enthusiasm for the subject had put him on national security watchlists for a while, but after a few fruitless months of following him to enthusiast shows and demonstrations of advanced manoeuvrability, the agents had written a report and abandoned the chase. It was clear Jules was no terrorist. A geek, maybe. Jules could have told them that from the beginning, but no one thought to ask him.
The reckoning put drone development back a few years, but it was back on track now, and Jules was thrilled to sign off on a drone operation for this mission. Hiding them in the sea had also been his idea, and he congratulated himself for flawless implementation. The additional Dove drones Jules hid off the coast were reinforcements for if the pier were subject to a large aerial attack. From what he’d seen of the Unjudged, it seemed overkill. But Jules liked overkill.
Jules pulled a larger tactical display out of the stork. He set it up on the stage and got to work. With some delicate tapping on the display, Jules had overwritten the programming and side loaded his own aggressive programme. Artur looked over his shoulder. A few more taps, and Jules had brought up a map of Cromer. Red dots hovered around the display.
“See those dots?” he asked Artur.
“Yep.”
“Enemy drones.”
“How do you know they’re enemy drones?”
“They’re in the air,” he said before pointing to a larger red square near the centre of the town. “And somewhere in that is the person who is controlling them.”
“So what do we do with this information?”
“We don’t do anything.” Tap tap. “But our little robot friends have some work to do.”
The doves whirred into life and left the auditorium.
“Good hunting, ladies,” Jules shouted. He grinned at Artur. But the older reckoner had a personal display pressed to his e
ar. He nodded but looked worried. That alone was enough to concern Jules. Artur rarely had any expression on his face other than quiet amusement.
“What’s wrong?” He asked.
Artur passed him the display.
“Backup’s here,” he said.
Paige
T heir old house had undergone a transformation. Wires appeared from holes in the ceiling and followed walls around and down stairs. Boxes were piled high, blocking most of the hallway. Paige was forced to squeeze through the gaps. There were no markings to say what was inside any of them. But when she knocked them, they felt heavy.
She avoided going upstairs to her brother’s room. Paige knew the only thing that she would achieve by opening that would be more sorrow. Instead, she entered the dining room, which was looking more like a circus.
Unjudged soldiers were running back and forth at great speed. She moved to the side as people rushed past with posters and weapons, chatting about where on the front line they were going. From what she could gather from the scattered conversation, a large reckoner force was heading towards Cromer from Norwich. They were likely to be there within the hour. From the living room, she could hear her mother’s voice. She barked orders at people, sending them to various areas of the town. As she squeezed past someone to gain access to the room, Paige saw her mother for the first time in three years.
Jennifer Grimwood looked every inch insane. Her grey hair had been pulled back into a bunch and held to the side of her head with a bright pink hairclip. She was wearing a McDonald’s polo shirt that was several sizes too big. But everyone was looking at her with total respect and seemed to be treating her commands as gospel.
In the middle of the room—where Paige would normally expect to find their dining table—a large horizontal display had been erected. On it was a map of Cromer. Each house was shaded blue or black. Small green dots moved around the town. At the edge of the town, red dots were slowly appearing from the south. Four red dots to the north of the town looked like they were hovering out over the sea. It took Paige a moment to realise those dots marked the reckoners on the pier.
Paige stopped on the other side of the display to her mother. “Mum,” she said.
Her mother looked up for a second but returned to the display. “Good. You’re here. Are you fighting? I need reinforcements to the south east.”
“Mum.”
“But the north west is key. If we can keep that road open, we can keep our supply carts running.”
“What about Sam?” Paige waved to get her mother’s attention.
Eventually she looked up, tears in her eyes. Jennifer shook her head. “Come on. We should talk.” She looked at Lana and pointed at the display. “Lana, man the display please. You need to make sure that all the roads in an out are manned at all times. They all have pulsers, but they are not to use them until I tell them. Any more recruits…”
Lana held up a hand, interrupting her. “Jennifer, I know. Go.”
Jennifer moved past the display and Paige.
“Come on,” she said and left the room. They retraced the steps Paige had just taken. As they did, more Unjudged pushed into the house, each one nodding at Jennifer as they did. “The house is a mess. We’ll go to the Steadmans’.”
Paige looked up and down the street where she had grown up. Victorian terraced town houses lined each side, bordered by tiny picturesque gardens and guarded by a short brick wall or hedgerow. She remembered jumping over walls with Sam as they dared each other to run across neighbours’ gardens. More good memories that were now tainted by the image of his death.
Her mother’s house had wires hanging out of the window that fed into a large black cable in the centre of the street. Like a cobweb, each little red brick house spun out wires that joined the large cable. The houses were seemingly feeding off it as if it were an umbilical cord. The Steadmans’ house was the most affected by this. Someone had removed the glass in the windows to allow the cables in and out. Everything hummed quietly. Inside, Paige could see lights moving back and forth. Steam flowed from the lower windows, pouring out like a morning fog over sand dunes.
“This is the best place to get a coffee on the street,” Jennifer said.
“Don’t the Steadmans live here?”
“Yep.”
“It looks like a computer server.”
Jennifer ignored her and gestured for Paige to follow her towards the house. “Do you remember Ax?”
“Fat thing,” Paige recalled. “Obsessed with computers.”
“Some things change; some stay the same.”
Paige followed her mother up the garden path and through the front door. The steam was cold when she stepped into it, and Paige realised it was a cooling spray. Just inside the door, an Unjudged was holding a turn-of-the-century scythe. He stepped to the side and let them pass, bowing his head in deference to Jennifer.
“Are you some kind of queen?” asked Paige, bemused.
Jennifer ignored her. They went along the hallway and into a room that was a kitchen in a former life. Display screens covered the walls and cabinets, presenting the lone man in the room with immediate images of the entire town. Some were displaying images captured from drones that appeared to be hundreds of feet in the air.
The room’s resident was wearing a VR headset that was attached to a pair of black gloves. He looked unhealthy, with pale arms and thin wavy hair. As he twitched his fingers and shuffled, different displays glowed a different colour as he sent new orders to the different drones. Jennifer held a finger to her lips and pressed a small button attached to one of the displays.
The man nodded and said “One minute, please.” He continued to move for a few seconds and then stepped backwards. Then he continued to move as before. Jennifer moved past him and, after a moment, Paige followed. They left the house and entered the garden.
“That’s Ax?” Paige asked. She remembered the Steadman boy. He was always that annoying younger child on the street, trying to get Sam to play with him and staring at Paige from his bedroom window whenever she walked past. Harmless but naive and a little gormless. “What’s he plugged in to?”
“Everything that runs in the town,” Jennifer pointed at Ax as he waved his arms around. “Best to let him leave the system before you try to talk to him. He can get… over involved in the reality.” Before Paige could ask any more, Jennifer turned her around and pointed into the garden.
The garden was exactly how Paige remembered it. The borders were neatly trimmed, and the grass was perfectly even. Down the centre, a thin cobbled path lined with colourful flowers joined the house to a shed, which was much larger than Paige remembered it, with a small chimney and a number of additional windows.
As they approached the door, it opened. Gerald and Claudia Steadman waved them in. There was a beautiful and welcoming smell of freshly brewed coffee. Everything seemed completely at odds with the technological nightmare that had taken over their kitchen and their son. Paige had to run her hand down the doorframe to check she wasn’t dreaming.
“Here,” said Gerald, handing over mugs. “You two both look like you need a good cup of coffee.”
Both women thanked their host. Then Paige remembered Sam had never liked coffee, and her heart skipped again. She bit her lip and tried to distract herself by looking around the interior of the shed. It was immaculate, just like Paige had always remembered their house before she left. Little landscape paintings and family photos graced every surface. It was a calm, relaxing environment. Paige found it unsettling.
As she sat down, Claudia put her hand on Paige’s knee. “We’re so sorry for your loss, dear.” Paige nodded and gulped down her coffee. Was this her mother’s idea of talking about Sam, putting her in the care of distracting neighbours?
“Any more from the hospital?” Jennifer asked.
“Which one do you want to know about?” Claudia asked. “The one missing an arm, or the one with the bullet in her shoulder?”
“Who got shot i
n the shoulder?” Paige asked.
“One of our soldiers was injured in a fire fight with the reckoners last night,” Jennifer said. She tapped her own shoulder. “But I know that’s not life-threatening. What about the Fiona woman, the one with the arm?”
“The one without the arm,” Gerald said. “She’s fine. We’re keeping her sedated for the moment.”
Paige asked, “Is that Sam’s friend?”
“Friend is probably an understatement,” Jennifer said, and Paige detected a hint of motherly jealousy in her voice.
“I didn’t know he had a girlfriend,” Paige said.
“Yes,” mumbled Jennifer. “There was a lot you didn’t know about Sam.”
At that, the walls came down. Paige screamed at her mother. She stood up at speed, knocking her coffee everywhere. The anger powered her, willed her to make her mother feel just how she did. She half-shouted, half-screamed as she blamed her mother for everything that had gone wrong, for Sam’s death, even for the reckoning. It was only when she paused to breathe that she realised she was almost touching the ceiling. To try to shout, to scream in such a small room, it was farcical. The others looked shocked. Claudia muttered “oh dear” and reached down to pick up the cup.
Paige ran out, willing tears to come but finding nothing but anger.
Outside, Paige stopped between the shed and the house. She crouched down and held her hands to her head, closing her eyes so tightly her face started to ache. She heard someone walking over. The floor was cold and damp from the morning dew. Her companion sat down nonetheless. She sighed as she sat, and Paige recognised her mother.
Above their heads, drones were zooming back and forth, recording everything that was going on in the town. One hovered above the mother and daughter for a while and then vanished over some trees. Jennifer reached over and placed a hand on her back. Paige flinched, but her mother kept her hand in place.
“I saw it, Mum,” Paige said. She moved her hands away from her face but stared at the ground. “I saw him die.”
