They’d used the winch on the front, probably intended to lay down temporary bridges, to pull the doors off of a convenience store. Most of them, still in their CGG military uniforms, were inside loading up a pair of shopping carts. They had their rifles casually slung over their shoulders as they moved goods from the store to the transport.
I watched as Silverstein and Taylor approached them, watching carefully for the signal.
“Lieutenant, we’ve got civvies out here,” one of the soldiers said, calling up to the open hatch on the APC.
From my vantage point I could see that they’d already removed their name plates and anything that would identify them with a particular unit. They were equipped like an engineering group though, not infantry. Silverstein launched into his part, playing it admirably.
“I could hear you from some distance away, have you come to rescue us?” Silverstein said nervously.
What looked to be the person in charge dropped from the vehicle to the ground and walked over to where Silverstein, Taylor and two other soldiers stood. Taylor did her best to be friendly in a way I’ve heard human females can be. The behavior still baffles me.
“Sir, there’s not likely to be any rescue. The CGG shut down went global a day ago,” the “Lieutenant” said, obviously mocking Silverstein.
The other soldiers smiled in a way I didn’t like. It was obvious they intended to survive whatever had happened by taking what they needed or wanted from others, by force. Eamon and I moved into our respective positions and prepared for the worst.
One of the soldiers pushed Silverstein down, then dropped the butt of his rifle hard to his midsection and grabbed Taylor by the arm. It had gotten ugly faster than we thought it would. We’d intended to try and lure them to a more enclosed location, away from their vehicle, with the promise of access to a vault in a building that was independently powered. Silverstein was to tell them he knew the access codes and that the contents would be worth their while, outlawed rejuvenation drugs were to be our ruse.
“Wait, I’ve something to bargain with,” Silverstein pleaded, doing his best to stay in character.
“I agree,” the Lieutenant replied, taking Taylor by the arm.
He dragged Taylor back toward the APC as the two other soldiers stepped in closer to Silverstein. What I saw through the scope of my rifle wasn’t part of the plan by any stretch, but Taylor must have thought she knew what she was doing. She reached over and touched the APC and did something that should have been impossible. She used what I assumed was tele-mechanic force to cause it to stall and shut down, the engines and systems going quiet.
The men cried out, and the Lieutenant released his grasp and turned to look up at the vehicle. I could hear him barking orders, but he was cut short as Taylor grabbed his sidearm and discharged it into his midsection. I was a little shocked, but quickly snapped out of it. Eamon and I opened fire, single shot only, from our respective sniping positions. He was lurking behind a dumpster in the alley and didn’t have the same field of fire I did from a ledge two stories up.
The idea was that he’d be able to fire on them if they went beneath the vehicle for cover and I’d be able to get at them if they scattered. We dropped two of them before the rest disarmed Taylor and pulled both her and Silverstein inside the convenience store. I tried to get another shot in to try to prevent the hostage situation, but it was too risky.
I knew I had to get in there somehow, and stop them from hurting my friends. I dropped from the ledge and crossed the street as Eamon moved to a position behind one of the APC’s enormous tank treads. Eamon was huge, it would take him a moment to squeeze through the door into the interior. I would have to be the first one in to cover him.
The Lieutenant was still on the ground, bleeding heavily from the stomach and cursing. He dragged himself over to one of the soldiers we’d sniped and recovered a rifle trying his best to stay in cover. Eamon waved me off from trying to get a shot on him, pointing to the upper level of the convenience store. I could see movement from inside, then the windows slowly opening as someone turned the emergency escape cranks to allow egress.
They’d have a great shot at anyone who tried to enter the building from the front, and the rear access was probably armored like every other building in the downtown core. I slid along the ground through the snow and refuse as close as I could.
“We’ve got your friends. Don’t know how you shut our rig down, but you’ll be turning it back on if you ever want to see them alive,” one of the soldiers called out from an upper window.
“Your boss is injured badly, he’ll die without medical assistance. We’ve access to that sort of assistance, but there’s nothing to be done as long as this standoff persists,” Eamon shouted back.
One of the soldiers stepped out with Taylor as a shield. Eamon peaked out from his position and nodded to the soldier. He moved forward so that Taylor was outside and he was still obscured by the building itself, at least from my vantage.
He ordered Taylor to go out and recover the injured lieutenant. She seemed to hesitate but she slowly moved out into the open. Kneeling down next to the injured soldier, she let her hand brush up against the APC. It suddenly started up again, the engine idling as it had before.
Before anyone could react, the access ladder retracted and the side hatch on the APC shut with a loud clank. It rumbled to life and began to slowly roll down the street, with Eamon keeping time with it, as to not lose his cover. The soldier holding Taylor hostage ran out into the street and reached down to pick up the Lieutenant in the confusion.
I watched carefully, waiting for an opportunity. Taylor stepped underneath the APC, and stepped back around the slow moving treads just out of reach. The soldier cursed and began pulling his fallen comrade back toward the building.
The APC made a lot of noise. It was all I could do to hope it would be enough to cover what I was about to do next. I squeezed off a round, felling the soldier, and began to run forward. The lieutenant dropped to the ground beside his fallen ally, trying to pick up a rifle but Eamon stepped in, crushing him underfoot.
I didn’t break stride as I rounded the corner into the convenience store. Bags of snacks crunched under my feet as I plowed into three soldiers waiting just round the corner. I moved as quickly as I could, past the muzzles of their rifles and clawed at their legs and abdomens. They fell to the ground behind me, bloodied and turning their rifles to fire at me. Eamon squeezed through the door behind them and trampled them as he made his way toward the center of the store.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to ascend the stairs in time to save Silverstein. Fortunately, Eamon had a way of giving us some more time. Stepping in behind me, he put his shoulder to one of the support pillars in the room, then clawed out the other. The false ceiling came down, and the floor above with it. Eamon stepped over me as an avalanche of building materials, filing cabinets, and people fell from the upper level.
Clawing his way upward, Eamon made a hole, tossing aside anything that got in his way, roaring as a real bear would, only much, much louder. If the soldiers weren’t stunned from the fall, they would be by the sound. I followed Eamon up and over the refuse that had fallen, dust and muzzle flare filling the air.
We moved out in opposite directions, staying low as our adversaries fired blind, our rifles down and claws out. They didn’t have a chance. When the dust cleared, I found Silverstein lying face down, his hands over his head. He coughed and turned over to look up at me.
“Wow, that did not go as planned,” Silverstein said, coughing, almost unable to breathe.
“Lucky for you, what they build on the inside of these armored facades isn’t nearly as tough as what they build on the outside. Makes it easier to redecorate for new commercial tenants that come in to replace the old,” Eamon replied, wiping the blood from his claws onto the tattered remnant of a plaid travel bla
nket.
We stumbled back outside to find the APC had stopped about a block up the street. Taylor was sitting in the snow up against the inside of one of the treads. She was very still, and my heart sank the closer we got.
Once we closed the gap, it was clear she’d caught a bullet in the exchange, her exquisite dress marred by blood right below the left collarbone. Silverstein stooped down and picked her up, trying to get some sort of response. There was none.
“Goddamn it, Ezra, how could this have happened?” Silverstein said angrily.
“I don’t know! Everyone else was in the building, and any shot out the doorway would have hit me as I was going in,” Eamon said, just as confused.
I turned and looked back down the street. We were just at the edge of the downtown core and there were several buildings only a block away that were archaic and probably off-grid. One, standing at the end of a t-intersection had a single window open, yellow curtains blowing in the wind. It wasn’t the soldiers that had shot Taylor, it was someone else.
“There,” I said pointing.
“We should get out of here before whoever it was decides to shoot at us,” I said pushing Silverstein into an adjoining alley.
Eamon and I walked along behind Silverstein as we made our way back to the hospital as quickly as we could. The APC followed along behind us like a stray dog rolling at the same pace while keeping to the main streets that could support its girth. There was nothing we could do about it, and we were much relieved when it shut down just outside the hospital.
Silverstein rushed Taylor inside and into the only examination room that still had power. Dr. Labs came in and examined Taylor, his expression grim. She’d stopped breathing moments before we arrived and had lost a lot of blood in spite of our best efforts to keep pressure on the wound.
I had to wonder if someone such as her could really be killed, or if perhaps she’d been programed to cease functioning in the event that she sustained an injury that would kill a normal person. Maybe whoever created her had wanted her to live life as it was meant to be lived, with a sense of her own mortality. I hoped desperately that would not be the case.
Regardless, it was my intent to go out and find whoever had shot her and get revenge. I was no good to anyone waiting around in the hospital. I gave Eamon a nod, checked my rifle, and headed for the door. Abbey was still standing vigilantly at the front entrance.
“I’m sorry about what happened to your friend,” Abbey said as I walked past.
“It didn’t have to end up like this,” I replied angrily.
“Going out to find the person responsible?” Abbey replied calmly.
I could only stand there and fume. I didn’t know what to do next.
“Ezra, whoever it was, they’re probably long gone,” Abbey said as she faced me. “It could have been anyone, even a vengeful civilian. Those rogue soldiers had to make a few enemies as they rolled through the older parts of the city.”
She was right of course. If there was anything I’d learned about humans since the shutdown it was that they would likely go one of two ways in the aftermath; barbarous desperation or something else entirely across the broad range of the human spectrum.
Chapter 5
Somewhere a bit south of HÄmeenlinna, Finland
8:21 PM, January 20th, 2200
Truman from Accounting
Phelps trudged along beside Walter, the three coats he was wearing barely staving off the cold of the Finnish winter. They’d been walking for almost three days and sleeping wherever they could find a modicum of shelter or warmth. Each step they took was following in the footsteps of a man who had promised them a return to modern luxury. This was a man who had just the day before flirted with their boss and taken a yogurt that did not belong to him from the fridge in the break room.
“Truman, is it much farther?” Walter whined, trying to rub the cold from his arms.
“Is not far now, you’ll see,” Truman replied.
“How are you not cold, Truman?” Phelps asked, looking at Truman’s business casual.
“Sometimes, where I am from, it would get cold like this. You learn to block it out, let your body, how you say...acclimate,” Truman replied jovially.
Walter looked over at Phelps with the same mournful eyes that he had every mile or so and shook his head. Phelps shot him an angry glare in response and walked faster to keep up with Truman. It was beginning to snow.
Truman was a big man, heavy from too many microwaved burritos but strong. He seemed to have no trouble making his way through the snow deeper into the woods. They’d been traveling north for hours and it would be dark soon. They’d crossed a major highway a ways back and were making their way into the dense timbers tourists would hike in during the summer.
“I wonder how the people trapped on the islands are doing, the last time I checked the auxiliary public network, the bridges had all been closed,” Walter whispered to Phelps. “I’m sure there are no commercial boats or water transports running. How will people get out of there?”
Phelps just shook his head, trying to avoid the conversation.
“It is too bad Marjorie could not come, yes?” Truman said, trudging through the snow.
“Do your brother and sister really have a transport out here? We’ll need to find shelter soon,” Phelps replied.
“When I come here, it was with a forged identity and CV. I was supposed to infiltrate your debt collection bureau and find someone inside to help us steal money,” Truman stated, matter of fact.
“What? What are you talking about?” Phelps replied.
“I am thief. My brother and sister and I were going to steal money, using your own computers. It wasn’t our plan. A man came to us with idea. It was a good plan, until today,” Truman added, somewhat disappointed, as if he’d lost a sock or spilled milk.
Phelps suddenly wished he’d listened to Walter and stayed with Abbey.
“Did you manage to steal any money?” Walter asked, trying to keep things friendly.
“No. During surveillance we watch your boss Marjorie. The plan was to turn her and use our combined access to steal money for FLF,” Truman replied.
“Financial Liberation Front? They’re terrorists!” Phelps exclaimed, somewhat shocked.
“Or rebels if you like. Anyway, we were doing our surveillance of your boss and do you know what? She sings in the shower. Now, she does not sing like what you would think. She sings as a beautiful song bird kept in a gilded cage. I fell in love with her voice,” Truman continued, clasping his hands to his breast.
“You watched her shower?” Walter replied, somewhat in awe.
“No, no, we are not barbarians. Anyways, we only listen to her conversations, the things she did at home, that sort of thing. No eyes-on watching. I would never have taken away her dignity like that. Now, my cousin, he has other idea. He says we are going to take her after operation and sell her to a skin trafficker, a man who trades in people,” Truman continued, regaining his previously jovial tone.
“No...” Phelps replied, looking around for a means of escape.
“You know what I did? I shoot him. My own cousin would sell someone with a voice like that, for only the chance to feel money in his pocket? I shoot him, and I spit on him,” Truman said, spitting for emphasis.
“You... you’re insane,” Walter blurted.
Truman stopped and turned suddenly, sticking a handgun in Walter’s already bruised ribs.
“Quiet, little man. I am telling story,” Truman said, his mustache bristling with every word. “Anyway, the man who gave us job was not happy, saying that I compromise whole operation. He did not know we were all family. His plan to give each our own bit of the operation while keeping us in dark about the rest failed,” Truman continued.
Phelps walked along, ey
eing the handgun still dangling in Truman’s hand. The man was easily twice his size and Walter was in his current state of health likely to be no help. He would have to wait and see how this played out.
“I did not care. All I really wanted was to be with Marjorie and to hear her sing. I do my best to woo her, but I am clumsy in these things. I did not take it personally, as she was a gifted flower. And me? I am only thief,” Truman lamented.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you felt that way, I’d have put in a good word,” Phelps replied, feigning empathy as best he could.
“Is okay. I did not deserve such a woman, perhaps no man does.” Truman waved his pistol as he talked. “I was like sailor listening to some far away melody, only to be dashed on the rocks. I had a recording of her singing, it was very nice. Still, I wish she could have come with me. I would, for her, done anything.”
Walter looked ahead and could see a medium sized commercial transport painted orange, the color assigned to neutral operators, but just as often employed by thieves and mercenaries. The team he traveled with to South America used such a vehicle as cover for their activities. He could smell something cooking over a fire in the distance.
“That your brother and sister up ahead?” Phelps asked.
“As I was getting ready to leave town, do you know what happened?” Truman asked, the joviality to his voice draining away.
“No. What happened?” Phelps asked.
“I found her, like withered flower in the snow. She is laying in the street, discarded like trash. She was still alive when I asked who left her there. She gave me two names,” Truman continued.
“Wait. Truman, there was nothing we could do,” Phelps said stopping in his tracks.
Truman stopped and turned to face Phelps and Walter. He looked down at them with a face that betrayed intense sorrow. Phelps raised his hands and tried to think of something he could say to console Truman, but the words did not come.
Uroboros Saga Book 2 Page 7
