Quake

by Andy Remic

  In the aftermath, the only sounds were people moaning and the thumping of Air Zermatt’s rescue helicopters fluttering uselessly above the terrible devastation.

  Leviathan Fuels: Premium Grade LVA

  - go on, make the switch, because you know your children deserve a better future ...

  The man wearing the fur coat and glossy yellow shoes stood on the runway staring up at the decommissioned Chinese MIG87 fighter and the small black DigiOpticDV4 camera attached to the nose cone just above the Chinese writing that read ‘Death to All Non-Believers.’

  ‘Is it attached?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Will it fucking stay attached?’

  The technician reddened. His boss, the Big Man, Sir Ronald Xavier IX and Corporate MD of Film & Film© Incorporated, makers of Film and Supreme Advertisements©, currently contracted to make one new high-tech advert per week for Leviathan Fuels - their biggest and biggest paying customer ever - was seriously fucking pissed off.

  More than pissed off. He was losing money. And to him that was a crime worse than multiple sodomy.

  ‘Yes, sir - I’m sure it’s not going to fall off again.’

  ‘It better fucking not,’ hissed Sir Ronald Xavier IX with passion. ‘We’ve lost a day’s filming, and that’s cost me US$38.7 million. I’d hate to deduct that from your pitiful wages.’

  The technician paled. He staggered back as if struck by a pickaxe handle, wondering how long it would take him to pay the money back if the unthinkable happened.

  Xavier waved him away with contempt, and with a ‘Fuckwit’ thrown into the employee-abuse list for good measure. He turned his attention to the pilot, who waved in the sort of happy fashion associated with a knowledge of one’s own non-expendability. Xavier frowned.

  ‘You know the run?’ he shouted.

  The pilot nodded, his features insect-like behind his helmet. ‘Like the back o’ ma hand, man,’ he drawled.

  ‘Well, go on, then!’

  The MIG87 taxied along a short length of runway and then leapt into the air. A sonic boom followed soon after as the jet reached altitude. For the pilot, the world became a huge expanse of blue scattered with marshmallow wisps of cloud. The sun blazed from an infinite heaven and he swung the MIG87, banking sharply left with a scream of engines, then right, before settling into a straight and even flight path.

  ‘Have you patched me through yet?’ came the annoyed voice of Xavier, followed by a low ‘Tut.’ ‘Well, fucking patch me through, you moron! What? He can hear me? Jesus Christ Superstar, you just can’t get the fucking staff these days ...’

  The MIG87 howled around in a wide arc, plummeted back down in a steep dive and passed low over Xavier’s head, making his strands of white hair, so carefully placed over his bald pate, wave wildly.

  ‘Idiot!’ screamed Xavier. There was a period of forced calm as he regulated his breathing - and his pacemaker, using external controls linked to his PDA. ‘If you kill me, none of you get paid, you morons! Now, head for the first Zone.’

  ‘Roger that.’

  That MIG87 slowed, engines decelerating with a heavy whine, and headed for the first Zone. The desert opened up, a sea of undulating sand, towering dunes - a world of harsh and natural emptiness.

  ‘Rolling Camera 3.’

  ‘Roger.’

  The MIG87 dropped low, skimming over the sand, huge clouds of it billowing up behind the fighter. The scream of jet engines sliced through the air as the warplane approached a massive rise of rocks - mountainous teeth of the desert, brown igneous rocks from an earlier age of the world, rising to reveal a valley dropping away into a sweeping expanse of sand and sparse spiked vegetation …

  These mountain teeth were still distant to the camera.

  The MIG87 hit its boosters, and the rocks suddenly appeared in the blink of an eye under massive acceleration - and then as suddenly jarred to a halt, rolling as the pilot slammed the machine into hover mode. Then he cruised easily down between two walls of jagged brown rock and on into the oasis within ...

  ‘Approaching Zone 2, over.’

  ‘Keep it real slow for this bit,’ said Xavier. ‘Is Camera 5 still on standby? Good.’

  From the desert reared a temple, a huge edifice of stone faced in the most wonderful brown- and golden-veined marble. Miraculously, it had not suffered the type of thefts that had robbed the Egyptian pyramids of the same era, and it remained a wonder of ancient architecture, protected by its natural environment, hidden by these towering walls of shrouding rock.

  The MIG87 passed over with a throbbing drone. Behind the temple stood five mammoth derricks supporting gleaming black pumps, huge steel arms working to extract precious LVA from beneath the sand and rock. The jet banked, rising above the desert teeth, and then came around in a tight arc, dropping almost to ground level and zipping between the five huge pumps and the tiny specks of people working among the engines before climbing up once more towards the massive inverted ocean of blue sky ...

  ‘Wonderful!’ came the crow of triumph from Xavier. ‘A beautiful shot, truly spectacular. Now head for Zone 3 ...’

  Again, the MIG soared and banked, zooming across desert sand and then levelling out to take in the scene from far above: the mountains, their precious treasure of the temple within, and the squat pumps close behind, extracting LVA from below the desert dunes.

  ‘I can see the text now,’ said Xavier, voice heavy with treacly emotion. ‘Leviathan Fuels - in harmony with our heritage, our ecology, our planet!’ He chuckled to himself as the MIG87 soared, cameras still rolling, images still being frantically written to precious disk. The fighter plane passed over the huge slurry pits filled with rock and mud, the excrement of the earth dumped only 500 metres from this most precious landmark, scarring the beauty of the desert... it passed over the tiny scummy village that had sprung up close by to house the workers - labourers, engineers, drillers - and their servicing whores: the thick swathe of black bin-liners spilling jelly-shit refuse, the stinking open-air toilet facilities, the barking, snapping dogs ... and finally past the rear of the temple where a group of humorous youths had scrawled fluorescent green garage-music graffiti over marble that had been hand-carved millennia ago ...

  ‘Shit. What’s he doing? What are you fucking doing? Idiot! Jesus Christ Superstar ... can we edit that out later? Right... is the audio off? Good. Fuck me ... hey, yeah? Oh, hiya, hey, hi, Lindi, you’re looking luscious for a sixteen-year-old, and I can’t believe the size of your breasts! I was so impressed by the agency shots that I... What? Come and get a glass of brandy, love, you very shortly will have earned it ... ooh, yes, that feels real good, yes, yes! Just ease it down and pull it out, yes, yes! Uh, keep doing that - a little bit faster now ...’

  Audio cut.

  Due to the impact of the twin quakes, Natasha’s ECube received an almost immediate update: new coordinates for a pick-up 160 klicks further east into the mountains, towards Strahlhorn and away from the scene of this colossal natural disaster and the subsequent heavy presence of the world’s TV and press media.

  Carter stood outside their cabin, yellow police tape wrapped in one fist like a boxer’s bandages, a rucksack gripped in the other. They had skipped the cordons - the police had plenty of other priorities out in the darkness, and many screams could still be heard. Carter’s gaze swept the grounds in the darkness and he sighed, a deep sad sigh. A heavy weariness and depression descended on two Spiral ops.

  ‘What are those coordinates?’

  Natasha repeated the list of numbers.

  Carter cursed quietly and hoisted the rucksack. ‘We’ll need transport. I ain’t fucking walking sixty klicks through snow-filled woodland and over mountain trails. I’ve hurt my back.’

  ‘Could we steal one of the hotel’s Snowcats? They’re kept away from the main building, in the sheds over there.’ She pointed through the gloom to where a rough-timber structure loomed through the falling flakes.

  Carter shook his head, eyes hard af
ter witnessing the devastation of Zermatt and listening to the distant echoing cries for help of hundreds of people.

  ‘I was thinking of something a little faster,’ he said.

  Natasha, one hand on the rough-hewn timber of the shed doors, stared hard in the gloom lit only by Carter’s MagLite. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I see what you mean. You’ve been snooping here before?’

  ‘I snoop everywhere. It goes with the job ... Come on.’

  ‘We’ll freeze!’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s fast. A Snowcat would take us hours! This is a Yamaha RX-16 Snowmobile, with an in-line 40-valve 2399cc Genesis-Extreme V engine, Pro-Action mountain suspension, titanium-fibre Deltabox chassis, Nail-skid resistance and a Camoplast Challenger track. This is the new promotional model - it has a 3D name badge and silver decals. Look, just above the tracks there. And it’s been converted to run on the new Leviathan fuel, LVA, so we get real good mileage into the bargain.’

  ‘Carter, you’re a fucking geek.’

  ‘But a geek who knows his vehicles. We’ll be at the meet a damn sight faster on this than in a fucking Snowcat. Just get some warm clothing on and have a look for your ski goggles.’

  Looking around to see if they’d been spotted, he straddled the machine and, using his ECube, within thirty seconds bypassed the digital immobiliser. The engine roared into life, and he flicked the switch for silencers, which slid into place. Carter revved the Yamaha snowmobile’s engine and dipped the clutch, feeling the incredible torque just waiting to be unleashed as he watched Natasha pulling on two more jumpers, her Berghaus fleece jacket, ski goggles and thick Gore-Tex7 gloves.

  ‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ she muttered, climbing onto the machine behind Carter and pulling her rucksack onto her back - stuff that they had salvaged from the cabin which they considered valuable enough to drag to this emergency Spiral pick-up. Equipment and clothing designed to keep them alive.

  Carter pulled his own goggles in place, blipped the throttle, then eased the clutch. The RX-16’s 2399cc engine boomed quietly, straining at the leash to be free; the tracks dug in and the snowmobile eased to the shed doors, poked its nose out, then roared free in a shower of snow, banking left, its suspension dipping and tracks clawing the snow as Carter accelerated away from the hotel, away from the police, away from emergency services. And away from the quake zone.

  They hammered up the mountain, the engine taking the huge ascent in its stride, snow spraying out behind them as the tracks dug deep and Carter eased the powerful machine between scatters of conifer. The broad sweep of the bright headlights cut slices from the chaotic darkness of the mountain night and tumbling snow, and Natasha looked behind her then, glancing back down the mountain, over the clumps of trees to the glow of the hotel embers and the steady sweep of police searchlights. Snow was still falling, blurring her view, and Zermatt and its horror was gone now. She turned back and hugged close to Carter, allowing him to buffer the wind-chill on this uphill flight to the Spiral rendezvous.

  ‘Something is deeply wrong,’ she muttered gently.

  But Carter could not hear her.

  They stopped for a breather, and Carter killed the RX-16’s engine and lights. Darkness swept in like a huge velvet cloak. Snow fell all around, quickly covering their trail with a veil of white and stifling any sounds of movement. Natasha checked her ECube, then tossed it to Carter who scanned the blue digits and glanced up ahead.

  There was no real trail to follow, just a newly improvised path - using the ECube to scope land contours, valleys and sudden crevasses. Carter lit a cigarette and the tip glowed in the darkness, illuminating his face through the falling snow.

  ‘We’re making good time,’ he said.

  ‘I thought you’d quit smoking. Or at least were trying to.’

  ‘That was before the fucking Earth tried to eat me. Twice. And before that huge bastard broke into our cabin and tried to crush my windpipe.’

  ‘That still makes me uneasy,’ said Natasha, reaching for the proffered cigarette and enjoying a heavy drag. Blue smoke enveloped her face and she coughed a little.

  ‘I thought you had quit,’ smiled Carter gently, retrieving his weed.

  ‘It’s been a rough night,’ she conceded, smiling, but Carter could read the exhaustion and horror in her eyes.

  ‘Which bit makes you uneasy?’

  ‘The intruder. Something doesn’t quite fit - about him not being Nex.’

  ‘I’m not the hardest man in the world,’ said Carter softly. ‘There are plenty out there who can take me in a fight; that’s why I use Mr Browning.’ He grinned nastily. ‘But yeah, I know what you mean. A bullet and a fucking severed arm ... I wonder what he was looking for? He certainly left empty-handed, if you’ll excuse the pun.’

  ‘Maybe he was a scout for the Nex?’ mused Nats.

  Carter shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. Those bastards are fairly thin on the ground now - the SAD teams have pretty much wiped that fucked-up genetic mess from the face of the planet.’ He shivered, adding mentally that he was also glad that Feuchter, and Durell - his old and bitter enemies - were dead: dead and buried under the sea with the remains of their battleship and improvised war station.

  Natasha nodded, and shivered. ‘It’s getting colder.’ She glanced up. ‘We could do with somewhere to stop.’

  ‘I think the rendezvous is near a hut or cabin of some sort. We’ll have plenty of time to rest when we get there ...’

  The Yamaha cruised through the falling snow, and soon the dawn arrived, its pink tendrils pushing between the snowflakes and turning the sky a cool grey. The falling snow eased until it was nothing more than a scattering of flakes, and the RX-16 found a narrow winding trail through the conifer forests. They cruised for a while, the snowmobile’s engine buzzing quietly as it prowled along. Carter’s gaze was focused and alert, sweeping the trail from left to right and back.

  He halted.

  The engine rumbled, spitting exhaust into the cold snow.

  ‘What is it?’

  Carter licked his lips, and lifted his goggles, rubbing at his eyes.

  The land rumbled, and snow shook from the trees to either side of the trail. The rumbling continued for perhaps a minute, and then subsided. Silence filled the world once more.

  ‘A gentle reminder,’ said Carter bitterly.

  ‘The sooner we get out of here the better,’ said Natasha.

  ‘I didn’t realise that Switzerland was prone to earthquakes.’

  ‘Neither did the Swiss.’

  They cruised through the snow for another two hours, then left the trail and again headed cross-country through the forests. At one point the world fell away to the left, a massive vertical drop down into a huge canyon filled with snow and the occasional scattering of black, shining rocks. Carter stopped for another cigarette and Natasha stood, shielding her eyes with her gloved hands and gazing down in awe as the wind whipped at her. Snow began to fall again, scattering patterns down into the valley below, and both of them felt privileged to witness such a display of Nature’s awesome power.

  ‘We’re so small,’ said Natasha. ‘So insignificant. It’s like, one minute we’re dancing at the party, the next the whole fucking hotel is swallowed by the Earth. We think we are so strong, so in control. And yet Nature - she could smash us in an instant.’

  ‘Yeah, you hold on to that thought,’ said Carter, flicking the butt of his cigarette away into the gulf of the vast valley. It spun, carried on eddies of snow and wind, and disappeared into the immeasurable expanse of bleak dawn wilderness.

  It took them another hour to reach the cabin, located by the ECube’s coordinate navigation. It was a small building set against a picturesque location and standing among huddled conifers. It had only a single room, and the outside log walls were piled high with snow. Still, the cabin seemed extremely inviting after the cold of the journey and the bleakness of the long stretches of mountain trail. The snow-heavy undergrowth surrounding the structure was dense
and eerily quiet.

  They killed the Yamaha’s engine and Carter had to dig a path to the front door, which lolled open on broken leather hinges. Working together, they cleared the spill of snow and filled the fireplace with wood from a narrow protected log store out back. It took a good ten minutes to get a fire going because the firewood was damp, but as the small flames finally took hold warmth began to flood out. Wedging shut the door with a heavy, rough-hewn table, they pulled off their wet clothing and boots and set them steaming on the earth floor before the fire, and warmed their numbing hands and feet before the flames.

  ‘The snow has got heavy again. Will the Comanche be able to fly through this?’ asked Natasha.

  ‘Our modified Comanches can fly through anything,’ said Carter softly. ‘They might not be able to land here, but they can winch us up; a real chilling experience.’

  ‘How long to the rendezvous?’

  ‘One hour.’

  ‘I’ll make us something warm to eat.’

  Carter grinned. ‘I thought you’d never offer. My stomach is like a Nazi’s soul - empty.’

  Carter stared at the bowl.

  ‘I can’t believe it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Of all the foodstuffs you could have brought with us from the cabin, all you brought was B&S.’

  ‘What’s wrong with B&S?’ Natasha smiled encouragingly.

  ‘Nothing, but ... well, B&S is just standard military fodder. It’s got a fair amount of roughage in it and ... it’s about as bland as bland can be, Nats. Couldn’t you have brought something else?’

  ‘Carter, we’re only an hour from a pick-up. I wasn’t going to go shopping for T-bone steaks!’

  ‘Yeah, but...’

  He stirred the red gruel. It seemed to be staring back at him.

  As he ate, Natasha reclined and skipped through recent files on the ECube. ‘You mentioned before that the snowmobile ran on LVA?’