Syndicate Wars_Empire Rising

by George S. Mahaffey Jr.

20

  Black Sunshine

  Quinn moved gingerly down the wooden steps into the darkness. Locks bounded down next to her and climbed aboard a bicycle and began pedaling. A few overhead lights began flickering on and Locks continued to pedal furiously. A green light flashed on a nearby electric generator that whirred to life. Barrows dropped in front of the generator, turning a few knobs, jiggering the choke.

  Quinn swatted away cobwebs. “Love what you’ve done with the space.”

  “Don’t hate on the man cave,” Barrows said.

  Quinn searched the space, noting that the walls were earthen, bare in some places, covered in metal or wooden scrap in others. A layer of gravel was underfoot and on either side of the bunker were several couches, a collection of metal bookcases, tables, and several small refrigerators.

  Hayden started poking around, easing open a wooden box that was stacked with shrink-wrapped bricks of white powder. A hand reached out and grabbed the box’s lid. Hayden turned to see Barrows. A moment passed between them. “So robbing the dead wasn’t enough, huh? You moved into dealing.”

  Barrows slammed the box shut. “It’s called diversification, pops.”

  “That help you sleep better at night?”

  Barrows was dwarfed in size by Hayden, but he squared up on him anyway. “Take a look around, old man. We lost the battle and the war. We live in a hellhole where we could be killed, or taken away by the scuds at any moment. They have the ability to listen to everything you do twenty-four seven. You think any of us sleep anymore?”

  “You trying to justify it?”

  “I don’t gotta justify nothin’, especially survival. I do what I gotta do to make it to the next day. And if that means giving the people what they want so maybe they can block out some of this pain, well then I’m doing it.”

  Quinn watched the exchange from a distance, holding Cody’s hand. Hayden wheeled around in disgust and stomped past her. Cody moved over and slumped on one of the couches, exhausted. Renner was nearby, kneeling, throwing open a fridge, hunting inside it like a hungry bear.

  Locks looked over and frowned. “Help yourself.”

  Renner did, discovering a small stash of baby food packets that he began tossing to everyone. Locks opened a crate full of what he said was home-brewed beer. He handed bottles to everyone who quickly popped the tops. The beer was warm and Quinn thought a little on the yeasty side, but still tasty. She felt the booze work its way down the back of her neck, filling up her nearly empty stomach, making her head swim.

  “Does it get any better than this?” Renner asked, holding up additional baby food packets and a bottle of beer. “Who wants more banana and roasted pumpkin?”

  Locks whistled and Renner tossed him two packets, one of which he offered to Quinn, who deferred. “You weren’t really gonna snap my wrist were you?” Locks asked.

  “Like a twig over my knee,” Quinn replied with a nod.

  Locks pointed one of the baby food packets at Quinn like a gun. “When I was little, we had this old red-tailed hawk that lived at the top of a tulip poplar tree in our backyard. One day I’m out on a swing and that big mother just swooped down and landed maybe ten feet away. Sucker just sat there, mad-dogging me. No offense, hon, but you kinda got eyes like that.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Quinn said.

  “What’s your name, hard case?”

  “Quinn.”

  “Was that bullshit before? All that stuff you were saying about the Viceroy?”

  She shook her head.

  “But even if that’s true, it had to have happened years ago, right?”

  “Six to be precise,” Quinn said.

  Locks snorted, shaking his head. He was clearly having trouble putting the pieces together. “So where the hell you been for the last six years, Quinn?”

  “I guess you could say we’ve been trying to get back here.”

  “Well, here you are. How you liking it?”

  Quinn didn’t respond. Giovanni, who’d been listening to the conversation the entire time, held up a hand. “What really happened to the resistance?”

  Locks swapped looks with Barrows who nodded. “Go on. Show ‘em.”

  Moving across the man cave, Locks checked the generator and then hoisted a metal footlocker secured with a rusted padlock. He undid the lock and opened the footlocker and removed an old school computer tablet with a cracked screen. Licking his finger, he powered up the tablet as everyone gathered around him.

  The tablet booted up and Locks accessed the hard-drive. Windows and subwindows were opened and swiped through and then Locks finally settled on a large file that he opened. Black and white aerial footage, as if shot by a drone or a plane, suddenly filled the screen. For a moment, Quinn thought it was a scene from a movie, a shot of a deserted city blanketed in what looked like snow. She slowly surmised from the architecture of several buildings and a few monuments that it was downtown Washington, D.C.

  “The hell are we watching here?” Hayden asked.

  “The end of everything,” Locks whispered in response.

  Locks manipulated the footage, the POV circling over the city. Locks panned and zoomed in as dark objects appeared on the empty streets. People. Hundreds, possibly thousands of people, emerging from the sewers, the edges of buildings, moving in waves down the streets.

  Then Locks paused the footage. “Remember that scene,” he said, gesturing at the tablet.

  He minimized the scene and swiped his finger, again opening a number of subwindows. Similar shots of what Quinn could tell were other cities, including various locales overseas. She knew this because she could see landmarks: the Eiffel Tower, Red Square, the Coliseum.

  “Where did you get this?” Quinn asked.

  “A little birdie hacked some Syndicate drones,” Locks answered with a sly smile.

  He powered up the footage and now Quinn could see more people, thousand, tens of thousands massing in the streets in dozens of cities.

  Locks paused this footage again, then looked back at Quinn and the others. “You sure you’re ready for this?”

  Quinn nodded.

  Locks cued the footage.

  The darkness in the footage of downtown Washington, D.C., was split by bursts of light. Locks amped the volume on the tablet and the sounds of combat became audible: gunfire, rocket fire, myriad explosions. It was like the Fourth of July in the middle of winter. Locks zoomed down until he was in the midst of what Quinn could see was ferocious fighting. Men and women, all presumably resistance fighters, charged down the street. Several people with backpacks strapped on, darted into buildings which disappeared in fireballs.

  “Suicide bombers,” Locks muttered, as if this wasn’t obvious from the footage.

  “That’s fucked up,” Giovanni stated, a hand to his mouth.

  Soon the fighting was joined by Syndicate soldiers and Reaper drones and various airborne assets that strafed and bombed the streets. Bodies were whipsawed and blown apart. Quinn watched the resistance charge into the Syndicate lines and soon the fighting was hand-to-hand. More explosions rocked the streets, monuments toppled, buildings turned to rubble, the streets carpeted with too many corpses to count.

  Locks’ hands moved faster than an orchestra conductor. He swiped between the other screens, allowing everyone to see the battles taking place in the other cities. Quinn watched a pitched battle between fighters and an army of Reaper drones in Red Square, saw an alien glider, on fire, crash into the Eiffel tower. The images continued to flicker and flash, the violence mesmerizing and then the scene returned to Washington, D.C. Quinn watched as the resistance fought valiantly, destroying clusters of Reaper drones, shooting down gliders and other craft with surface-to-air missiles.

  But the aliens kept coming. Locks whipped the POV around so that the others could witness more Syndicate gliders landing, disgorging thousands of fresh troops. By the end of it all, there were but a handful of resistance fighters standing back-to-back in the middle of a traffic circle, climbin
g a fountain centered by a statue of a man on a horse. The footage lingered on the figure in the middle of the resistance fighters.

  “STOP IT!” Giovanni shouted.

  Locks paused the footage, looking back to see Giovanni gesturing at the tablet.

  “Tha-that p-person,” Giovanni stammered, pointing at the screen. “Can you focus on the person in the middle?”

  Locks brought his fingers together on the table, able to highlight the central figure in the resistance last stand. Quinn’s eyes widened. She recognized the figure. Her eyes hopped to Giovanni, a look of recognition on his face. “God Almighty,” Giovanni gasped. “That’s Luke.”

  “You know him?” Locks replied, gesturing at the tablet.

  “He was one of us,” Giovanni replied.

  Silence flooded the space. Quinn wanted to comfort Giovanni, but whatever kind words she was trying to muster collapsed in her mouth. Giovanni raised a trembling finger.

  “Wha – what happened to them?”

  “You don’t – I mean, there ain’t no reason you need to see what comes next because—”

  “Play it,” Giovanni said, some steel in his voice. “I need to know.”

  Locks engaged the footage which revealed the Syndicate forces moving in for the kill when a burst of retina-searing light filled the screen. Quinn squinted the light was so bright. When she glanced back, the fountain and streets were obscured by plumes of smoke. Giovanni leaned forward, his eyes searching for any hint of movement.

  “What happened?” he asked breathlessly. “What the hell happened to them?”

  Locks shrugged. “Somebody set off a bomb.”

  “Or a pyrotechnic. A flash bang maybe,” Giovanni offered, turning to the others. “It could’ve been a flash bang.” Quinn returned her attention to the tablet, but nothing was clear for several seconds. If there were any bodies in the fountain, they couldn’t be seen. Of course, if a bomb had been detonated, it was entirely possible that nothing remained of those that had set if off, but she didn’t want to mention that in front of Giovanni. The last thing that could be seen on the footage was images of the Syndicate soldiers killing the wounded and taking the able-bodied prisoner.

  The screen went black. Locks powered down the tablet. “So now you know,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “We don’t know anything,” Giovanni barked. “They could’ve been taken prisoner. Christ, they could’ve gotten away.”

  Locks powered the tablet off. “They’re all dead, dude.”

  Giovanni lunged forward and grabbed a handful of his shirt. “They’re not fucking dead! You saw that, there weren’t any bodies!”

  Quinn grabbed Giovanni, pulling him back.

  “We have to get in there, Quinn.” Giovanni was seething, staring at the screen.

  “Fine.” It wasn’t like Quinn could tell him no. When Giovanni took off, they could get to a safe point and then set those who wanted to leave on their way.

  “It’s settled then,” Giovanni stated, standing now, eyes narrowed. “This is where I get to the other side of that wall and find Luke. He’s still alive, I know it.”

  “Ain’t gonna happen, brother,” Locks said. “Nobody can get inside without a pass.”

  “So get us one,” Giovanni replied.

  Locks looked to Barrows who sighed. “There’s only one dude with that kind of pull. The head of the Sunshine trade. Mr. Q.”

  21

  Mr. Q

  A man emerged from the shadows of an airplane hangar at the back of the old air base and stretched his tall frame. He wiped a few beads of sweat from his brow and held up his hand, whispering a prayer that today would be another good day. Of late there’d been many of them and for that, Esai Quarrels was grateful.

  Quarrels had heard a booming note off in the distance a few moments earlier, what sounded like an explosion. He peered into the distance and saw clouds of smoke rising up in the general vicinity of an area known as the plains.

  Chalking it up to a Syndicate training exercise, he returned to the interior of the hangar, what had once been a portion of Joint Base Andrews, an Air Force base back in the days before the aliens arrived. It had been an important military facility back then, a place that routinely welcomed the President of the United States and other exceedingly important people. Since then, the base had fallen on hard times, attacked during the initial Syndicate invasion, destroyed, and then abandoned, before people like Quarrels began moving in and repurposing what was left of it.

  The inside of the hangar teemed with workers who were busy overseeing what had originally been a kind of makeshift laboratory and processing center. On the left side of the hangar were industrial containers filled with raw material, including two powders, one gray, one white, that were mixed in a hopper and then heated in a series of gigantic cannibal vats positioned above several immense, wood-fired grills.

  Quarrels watched smoke rise from the fires, the pots soon tipped over, spilling their contents, now a white paste, onto a series of colossal, stainless steel trays. The paste was left to cool and then removed from the trays and fed through a conveyor belt that dropped the material into grinders that whirred and hummed, and turned the paste to a dust that was now formed into blocks. The blocks then continued on another conveyor belt towards twelve men and six women who shrink-wrapped and stacked them into plastic crates that were the size and shape of coffins. These were then hoisted up and loaded onto wooden pallets.

  Quarrels loved watching his people prepare the product because proper palletizing always came with its own rhythm. He watched the ladies moving in pairs, sliding down slip sheets on the bottom of the pallets to obviate compression strength deprivation. Next came the men with the crates who worked in teams, placing the heaviest boxes at the bottom, another man checking for weight, steadiness, and column strength. Finally, four more men fanned out, manually stretch-wrapping the pallets while another hand-stamped them with Quarrels’ insignia: a triangle with a black sun rising up over Earth in the foreground, a representation of the product itself, Black Sunshine.

  Quarrels had a vague recollection of when a drug with the same name (and nearly identical molecular structure) had been popular before. Decades earlier, the drug had created an epidemic in America that had led to a kind of civil war. The drug’s users, referred to as “Weepers,” had metastasized from disparate gangs into a full-blown army that nearly brought the country to its knees. The drug-fueled insurrection was ultimately put down and the drug completely eradicated … at least for a while.

  Quarrels had no idea why the drug had suddenly reappeared after the invasion, and frankly it didn’t matter. All that concerned him was that there was a ferocious hunger for it and he had the ability to give the people what they wanted. He wasn’t a pusher or a dealer, regardless of what others thought. He was merely a businessman, trying to do his best in the middle of extraordinary circumstances.

  “We’re ready to rock and roll, boss,” a voice said.

  He looked up to see one of his employees, a rough-neck named Grunfeld, in his late-twenties, who was gesturing at an armored, flat-bed truck. The truck’s partially-covered bed had been loaded down with Sunshine, a pair of workers strapping the plastic crates in place. Quarrels watched seven other trucks exiting the base, headed off in various directions to deliver the product to his “Runners,” the men and women who distributed the product.

  Then he climbed aboard his truck, which rumbled out through a back gate on the base, Grunfeld behind the wheel, Quarrels in the shotgun seat. Behind them, in the bed, were three heavily-armed guards who were responsible for keeping watch on the road and monitoring the truck’s defensive assets. There were a number of hazards that confronted the shipments of Quarrel’s products: roadside bombs, small, homemade drones the size of birds, scavengers, and snipers. As such, the truck had been fitted with spoofers, electronic counter-measures, and even explosive-reactive armor, a layer of minute explosive bricks that covered the metal baffles under the bed and which woul
d prematurely detonate any shaped warhead that was fired at the truck.

  Interestingly, it wasn’t the Syndicate that worried Quarrels. Indeed, when he’d first arrived to D.C. some three years earlier, he’d been shaken down by the local gangs and eventually brought in for questioning by a Syndicate sweeper team. They’d roughed him up (tortured him a bit if truth be told), but once they realized he was experienced at various black-market operations, that he had friends across the country who’d never stopped slinging this and that after the invasion, they came to an agreement.

  Quarrels was told that he could continue to manufacture and distribute contraband, including Sunshine, and the Syndicate would look the other way (as long as he shared a cut of the product with them). The reason why? A drugged civilian was less likely to revolt, the aliens told Quarrels who smiled and nodded and agreed in return to keep his ear to the ground and share any information on those who might be contemplating acts of sedition.

  The armored truck cruised down what was left of Interstate 95, weaving around massive craters in the blacktop caused by bomb blasts. Slaloming between clots of abandoned cars, the truck picked up speed and then slowed on a rise. Quarrels looked over at Grunfeld who’d stopped the machine. He was taking in the view, the charred remains of the MGM casino on his left and beyond that, the National Harbor resort which lay on the banks of the Potomac River. Both had been obliterated in the days following the initial invasion.

  “I used to work there,” Grunfeld said, gesturing to the casino. “Didn’t even have my diploma, but one of the hiring folks took a chance on me. Started as a line cook at this ritzy seafood joint and worked my way up to assistant manager.”

  “Funny how big things can have small beginnings,” Quarrels mused. “You know how I got my start doing this?”

  Grunfeld shook his head. “No, sir.”

  “A lady friend gave me a packet of the good stuff a few years back. Military-grade fentanyl, klonopin, ketamine.”