Sarah hauled him up to where they had stashed Meyrick and Brock, still unconscious. ‘Your sister? Here? Then she’s as good as dead.’
Joshua gaped at her in horror.
‘We’ve got to get out of here before the entire Confederate army knows we’re here,’ she concluded.
‘NO!’ Joshua shrieked hysterically. ‘She needs me, she’s only nine... or fifteen... I don’t know...’
Ichiro burst through the roof with his pick, and daylight streamed in. They had dug up under a park not far from the Colonnade, mercifully free from any anti-aircraft fire for now.
‘We did not see anyone with you, are you sure she...’ Ichiro added, but the argument was already won.
Joshua slumped, defeated.
Ichiro cleared the hole wider and jumped out to check the surface. He made sure it was deserted, and cracked a signal flare. Then he came back to haul up Brock out of the cavern.
Joshua came back to life and grabbed the rope he had been saved with. ‘I can save her!’ he yelped, and prepared to leap back down among the teeming throng of mindless savages. He swung out over the perilous drop. ‘They’ve got something rigged over the pit, some crazy laser or...’ Joshua was yelling at the top of his voice. Faces in the pit gazed up at them blankly. Confederate soldiers streamed in on more suspended platforms throughout the cavern. It was the army Sarah had predicted. They were uncoordinated for now, but upon hearing Joshua’s cries they fired madly up towards their perch.
‘We can not stay here!’ Ichiro yelled. Bullets and Stunner beams bounced off all around them.
Sarah caught Joshua by the leg as he called out to his sister. She pulled his foot and twisted it inwards, dislocating his ankle. Joshua howled in agony.
‘I can’t let you do that Joshua. I’m sorry, but you’ve got to shut the hell up,’ she said, and smacked him over the head.
His jumpsuit was already stitching the bone nerves in his ankle back together, and applying copious amounts of anaesthetic. Joshua clung to consciousness while bursts of fire exploded around their heads.
Ichiro tied Meyrick in a bundle of rope and threw the end up the hole as quick as he could. Then he rushed over to Sarah and helped haul in Joshua, kicking and screaming. By the time they had everyone up to the surface, Joshua was weeping into his hood, delirious with medication.
The Nyctalopia soared overhead, badly damaged, but still flying. Just how Richard had kept her in the air was anybody's guess.
Sarah and Ichiro stood together and fired their wrist mounted rope guns at the ship, locking onto the cargo bay roof.
They lifted off with Meyrick, Brock and Joshua cradled between them, up into the belly of the ship, and made their slow, limping way back to the Academy.
Two Weeks Later
Chapter 24
Simeon rose from the groggy stupor of a long tiring night. He’d been in constant communication with his fellow members of the High Council for the last few weeks, and the time difference was eating at him. It was his idea after all to send the other seventeen members to secure locations around the globe. They didn’t like having to leave the Colonnade, but they saw the need for caution, with the recent unrest among the commoners. What Simeon didn’t mention was that he had been unable to recover General Withers’ iPC with the bio-ID, using his drones. That was why he’d suggested the Council remain isolated from each other.
Publicly, he had used the drones to put down even the slightest sign of resistance among the citizens, which kept them subdued for now.
He was safe as long as everyone believed he had the bio-ID. That act wouldn’t last, just as Simeon had predicted back when the General had wanted to do the same. Already the Council members were gossiping.
Fortunately, Simeon was about to play his trump card.
His quarters had truly become his own now. What was once the spartan military lodging of General Withers, had been transformed to further coalesce with Simeon’s own taste. He’d had everything installed with panels. Millions of them. Every object in the room, furniture, kitchenware, utilities and appliances, was sliced up into tiny panels in the walls to be used on demand.
As Simeon got up from his bed and went to relieve himself, the bed was snatched away by some unseen force and folded into the layers of panels all around him. Likewise, as he entered the bathroom, the sink, toilet and tiled shower appeared in front of him like magic. It was incredibly convenient. Any outsider would have marvelled at such feats, but Simeon had become accustomed to them.
He finished relieving himself and wandered to the area where his office would appear. The liquor cabinet was the first to arrive from within the panels and Simeon poured himself a breakfast cocktail. This was another item to which he had become desensitized. It took a lot of booze to clear his morning fog.
He smacked his lips on the sticky spirits, booted up his iPC, and set up a direct peer-to-peer connection with the server built into the desk. From here he could play with his toys in security and comfort while looking out over the wide vista of the Colonnade and beyond into the horizon. Off to his immediate right was the giant bank of monitors he used to keep an eye on his drones and the Colonnade. He’d now assigned a drone to each of the other High Council members to keep under constant surveillance.
One drone and one dedicated monitor for each member, all from the drone’s first person perspective. Simeon had found watching someone’s life from a drone viewpoint awkward at first, but like everything else he had quickly grown used to it.
He could see and hear all that they did. But without access to their most personal thoughts, he had to watch for hours sometimes just to get events into context. Conversations didn’t make sense until a note in a calendar was marked or another conversation with a third party was held. Many of their actions may have even been a pretence for something much more sensitive. It was like jumping into a book at a chapter from the middle. Except the book knew you were reading it.
Most of the Council members hated having Simeon watching, and tried to keep their most personal and intimate business for when they guessed he might be asleep. It didn’t always work.
The time Simeon wasted watching the Council members was infuriating. They’d left for their secure locations before he could put them through what he had begun calling the bio-ID’s “dissolution process”.
Brock had done what he could to mimic Prewett’s bio-ID design for the General, but he just couldn’t get it exactly the same. So he’d ended up being the first test subject for his own experiment when Simeon had visited Brock’s lab and turned on the new bio-ID machine. Like the captain of a doomed ship, Brock had slowly sunk into insanity. Perhaps there was some kind of leak or bleeding effect that caused Brock to imagine voices in his head.
Simeon had no trouble reading Brock’s mind. For the first time in human history, Simeon had become the first true mind reader. It was more than illuminating.
Brock’s thoughts were digitized and dispatched to a neatly formatted script for Simeon’s scrutiny. He could filter them down to relevant subjects, emotional state or date ranges, among other factors. It was revelatory.
It was a great pity then, that Brock was such a weak-willed fool. Within a week, he had broken down into a blubbering mess. Simeon had to have him locked up to prevent him attacking anyone, and assigned the bloated buffoon, Meyrick, to keep an eye on him. That had been a mistake on Simeon’s part, expecting Meyrick to do a competent job of babysitting. When those damned kids from the Academy had infiltrated the Colonnade, they’d made off with Meyrick as well as Brock. They’d had the wits to blindfold their prizes, though they couldn’t possibly know of Simeon’s power. They’d slip up eventually.
Meyrick and Brock were both cut off from him, for now. The monitor showing Brock’s current view was nothing but him bouncing a ball at a wall. He’d being doing it for days. Simeon would just have to give it time. Brock would do something more interesting eventually.
The pawns were slowly moving into place. He’d make h
is move for checkmate soon enough. In the meantime, he would change the rules by adding a million more pieces to the board.
With a flick of his wrist, Simeon brought up a wide-angle view of the pit onto the larger screen in the centre. Hundreds of thousands of people milled about, their minds torn down to an empty wasteland in the confines of the oppressive hole. They were only days away from tearing each other to ribbons in desperation and hunger. More importantly, the vast majority had wandered under the invisible beam of Brock’s bio-ID counterfeit. The names of those affected made for a vast spreadsheet on his iPC display, along with their location, physical state, and other personal information.
Simeon indicated a random name, and the iPC instantly activated the telepathy. The view appeared on his bank of displays, just like the Council members had, but in the subject’s first person perspective. He had far more options to play with too.
Simeon watched the view coming from an older woman, down in the pit. She was thinking of her children, left with her brother somewhere on the outskirts of Chicago. Memories of her abduction flashed through her mind, but she mostly tried to focus on the children’s faces. The visions in Simeon’s iPC became unintelligible as her memory strained. She gave up, and the monitor on Simeon’s wall showed she was sitting down, head in hands.
A boring view. He’d change that.
Simeon pushed the active telepathy task to the background and brought up a new program on his iPC. With a few commands from his brain to the program, he opened a wide door down in the depths of the Colonnade. Light streamed in over the pitiful creatures deep in the pit. Simeon, watching on the monitors from afar, issued another command, lowering a ramp. It led to an open door, and back out into the world.
Simeon grinned as the thousands of savages shuffled up into the sunlight. Every one of them multiplied his vision’s reach. Within weeks they would spread, and from his perch at the top of the Tower he could survey the entire globe. Nothing would be hidden from his sight. Every last detail of everyone, everywhere, would be catalogued and filed.
Simeon’s new army of human drones would find the Academy. Then he’d send in the real thing.
Chapter 25
Being partially crippled hadn’t excused Joshua from attending class. Casey had said it was a just reward for commandeering the Nyctalopia. Actually, Joshua thought he had gotten off the hook easy. Casey had been thrilled when Dr. Prewett told him Brock may be able to access General Withers’ iPC.
They had trusted Brock enough to set him up in a lab, with the precaution of keeping it cut off from the rest of the underground base. He still acted strangely on occasion, but he had stopped hurting himself for now.
Meyrick had been imprisoned nearby while he was interrogated. He certainly wasn’t too pleased with the new accommodations. The jail cell was four thick concrete walls, a bed and a toilet. The roof was open, allowing the jailers to throw food and water down. Students walked past and gawked at the captive. The opening was lined with laser tripwires that gave Meyrick a few nasty shocks before he learned not to try. He sat on his bunk, seething.
Casey wasn’t taking any chances with either Brock or Meyrick. He’d heard Sarah’s account of the foray into the Colonnade, and declared the entire operation as too easy. It had to be a trick of some kind. Aside from the quadrupedal drudges, they hadn’t had a single drone fire on them. It was like the Confederacy wanted them to escape. Joshua thought he was being paranoid. It hadn’t seemed so easy to him at the time. Casey just hadn’t been there.
The hardest part for Joshua had been leaving his sister behind... if that had even been her at all. It made no sense. She should be fifteen by now, but the Lucia he saw had been exactly as he remembered her – a skinny little child. Had he dreamed the whole thing? It had seemed so real. Joshua recounted the mission over and over in his head. How many times had he been wounded? When did the auto-meds in his jumpsuit kick in? The last thing he remembered clearly was the fall off the towering machine drudge in the cavern, just before he blacked out. Everything after that was a blur.
The double zap of a Two-Shot brought him out of his reverie. Casey was demonstrating the new Confederate weapon to the class today. It was the same one Ryan had used on them weeks earlier. They only had that one unit to go around, but everyone needed to know how to handle them in case they had no other choice in the field.
They were on the Academy’s firing range, just a wide-open space surrounded by solid rock walls and dummy targets set up down range. A table of weaponry sat to one side. The younger students crowded around Casey as he showed them the bulky weapon. The Two-Shot looked like an older sibling of the regular Confederate Stunners. It was a hand-held double barrel cannon. There were protrusions sprouting out of the barrel for cooling units and targeting sensors. Joshua had seen quite enough of it. He hobbled over to the table and poked at the other weapons while Casey fired a few more bursts of the Two-Shot. Ichiro joined him at the weapons table.
‘Familiar with all of these? Ichiro asked. He hefted a Stunner and tried to compare it with a Two-Shot. Joshua nodded absent-mindedly and sorted through the usual lethal weapons. Handguns, rifles, beamers and rail guns dominated the selection. Most were scavenged from Confederate storehouses, a few assembled here at the Academy from spare parts. Joshua picked up a crossbow and turned it over in his hands. It had an engraving on one side that simply read, “Fletcher C00270”.
‘Where did they find this?’ he asked as he replaced it on the table. Ichiro shrugged.
‘They are not exactly common these days, but we still make good use of them since a crossbow is nice and quiet compared to this lot.’ Ichiro indicated the guns. ‘I think Sarah might have repaired that crossbow herself,’ he added.
Joshua threw him a look. He hadn’t talked to Sarah since they’d returned from the Colonnade. He was still angry with her for dislocating his ankle and stopping him from going back for his sister. She didn’t believe Lucia was really alive. Sarah somehow managed to always assume the worst.
Ichiro knew Joshua still felt sore about the incident. Why had he brought it up? Joshua waited for him to speak as the silence grew uncomfortable. Finally Ichiro broke.
‘I had to get out of there,’ he said. ‘Sorry Joshua. It is just... all those people in the pit. I... I could not stand seeing them there.’
Flashes of memory came back to Joshua now. The pit... those millions of people waiting for, what? Death? Why were they there at all? The Confederacy never just wasted resources like that. They had to be going to put those people to some sort of vile use. Maybe Meyrick would know. But how to get him to open up? Joshua needed a “bad cop” to his own “good one”.
He suddenly realised Ichiro was still talking.
‘...when I lost them. I was only five years old. What could I do? I was on my own. That was all I could think about when I saw the pit, and I panicked. I climbed to the roof and dug my way out. Sarah found me there, then she saw you down by the pit.’ Ichiro looked up at Joshua. ‘Hey are you even listening? Watashi wa watashi no tamashī o unda,’ he muttered in annoyance.
Joshua hoisted the crossbow over his back and it stuck to the jumpsuit automatically, hanging there like a fridge magnet.
‘Sure you can use it,’ Joshua snapped back to the present, taking a guess at the answer Ichiro expected. He slapped him on the shoulder and trotted off. ‘I, uh... gotta go... place.’
Ichiro watched him run off, the look of frustration on his face relaxing as he saw Joshua turn towards Sarah’s apartment.
Joshua was almost to Sarah’s place when he ran right into her.
‘Just the person I was looking for. I need your help,’ he said.
‘Again?’ Sarah folded her arms. ‘You remember how well it turned out the last time you came to me for help. How’s your ankle?’
‘Hurts like crazy, thanks for asking. The jumpsuit took me off the meds,’ Joshua replied. ‘You can make it up to me right now though. Let’s go talk to Meyrick.’
Sara
h looked anything but impressed. ‘This isn’t about your sister again is it? Look, I’m sorry, but she wasn’t even there that day. You have to let this obsession go.’
Joshua did his best to hide a flash of annoyance. ‘It’s not about that, I promise,’ he said. ‘We need to know why the Confederacy was keeping all those people locked up. Even you must see that we have to be prepared for anything. What if they are all indoctrinated suicide bombers? Or infected with a super-virus and let loose on the streets? There are far too many unknowns and I for one want some answers. Now are you with me or not?’
Sarah hesitated. She looked back the way Joshua had come, where students endured patiently while Casey hooted with joy as he fired off rounds of valuable ammunition. It was the same enthusiastic yet childish tactics he’d used to try and squeeze answers out of Meyrick.
Needless to say, it hadn’t worked. Meyrick might be a worm, but he was loyal to the Confederacy. No one had ever had this opportunity before, and Sarah didn’t trust anyone but herself to do it right. She let her breath out, not having realised she was holding it.
‘Okay. You’re right,’ she conceded. ‘We need to interrogate Meyrick properly. Let’s go, I’ll be your bad cop.’
She flashed a brilliant smile at Joshua and he very nearly forgot about the throbbing pain in his foot.
Chapter 26
Brock got up from his computer. He had always preferred using an old-school desktop PC. The surgery needed for an iPC was excruciating, at least that’s what he’d been told. It certainly didn’t look comfortable once it was in an eye socket. The robotic implants seemed to bulge whenever someone flicked their eyes around. It was creepy. He felt like those cyborg people were always watching him. Lately he felt that way all the time. He scratched viscously at the back of his head, drawing blood.
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