by Alex Scarrow
The men standing beneath them stood no chance.
Gunfire from further along the line resumed; one of the Confederate machine-gun teams managed to bring a second of the creatures down, concentrating their stuttering fire on its chest. As it collapsed, Devereau got a closer glimpse of a small head almost completely recessed into the chest: two small dark eyes, a mere gash for a nose and a pipe emerging from where a mouth should be, curling round under the left shoulder armour plate to a pair of cylinders strapped to its back.
Ten of these things still … ten! Sweeping their spiked and bladed fists into the trench, dismembering, crushing, eviscerating every poor soul within easy reach.
‘They’re killing us!’
Wainwright nodded. ‘We should fall back!’
He was right … remaining here within range of their brutal bladed arms was utter madness. The trench was already lost. At least, with more open ground to cross to reach the horseshoe trench, there was a chance the men deployed there could bring down a few more of them.
‘Fall back!’ Devereau cried, his voice lost amid the cacophony of screams, metal on metal, the clatter of guns, the pebble-dash clang of bullets sparking off iron plates.
He tried again, cupping his mouth. ‘FALL BACK!’
‘THE HORSESHOE!’ added Wainwright.
A bugle sounded the retreat and those men still alive, still with arms and legs, began to scramble out of the trench like startled crows from a field.
‘What’s happening out there, Becks?’
‘I will observe,’ she said, heading towards the shutter door.
From the distant noises Maddy could hear it sounded like the British were trying their luck again on that first trench. But this time round the nature of the battle sounded different: less gunfire, more voices. She’d heard the regiment’s bugler sound some signal. She had no clue what that meant, but could guess it probably wasn’t good news.
‘Oh God … they’re coming!’ she uttered. She realized her whole body was trembling. She hated the sound of her voice, shrill and warbling, like a little girl, like a child.
Why am I such a freakin’ dork?
She envied the colonels, both of them cut from the same cloth — leather-faced veterans with the very same manner — a dignified calm about them, a gentlemanly formality. What the British called a stiff upper lip.
And here I am trembling like some pampered chihuahua on a park bench.
‘Bob? Do another probe.’
› Maddy, the last one was only seven minutes ago.
‘I know! I know! Do it anyway!’
› Information: if we increase the number of times that we check for them, we will drain the stored energy more quickly.
‘Jesus! I know that already! Just do it!’
› Affirmative. Activating density probe.
Becks squeezed past the entrance to the machine-gun bunker and into the horseshoe trench that looped around the archway.
The men lining the dirt wall, reinforced with sandbags and slats of wood, waiting for the battle to reach them, looked at her with bemusement.
‘It ain’t safe out here, miss,’ said one of them. ‘Best get back inside.’
‘I will be fine,’ said Becks, shrugging off the comment. ‘Thank you for your concern.’ She found a space between two soldiers and stepped up on an ammo crate to get a look over the rim of the trench.
The rubble-strewn ground sloping down to the borderline was thick with men staggering uphill towards them. Many of them bloody. Beyond them she could see a pall of thinning yellow mist over the front trench and other men spilling out of it. She could see several large silhouettes looming over the trench. She counted nine of them.
‘What are those?’ she asked the man beside her.
‘M-monsters! Called up from Hell itself by them British.’
‘They genics, ma’am,’ said the other. ‘Grown from blood an’ body parts.’ The man shook his head at the other. ‘Ain’t no devils or demons from no Hell. Tha’s all jus’ voodoo crock.’ He sighed. ‘Worse than that anyhow … it’s nature all messed up in a way it should’na be.’
She nodded. Guessing what the soldier was saying.
Genetically engineered units.
The first of the retreating men flopped down into the horseshoe further along, wide-eyed and gasping for breath. ‘Jesus! You can’t … y-you can’t do nothin’! Can’t do … nothin’ to stop … them!’
Others collapsed over the edge and rolled down into the mud beside him. ‘They genics! Goddamn British is usin’ genics on us again!’
She could recognize fear spreading among the men, spreading like flames across a summer-dry field of wheat.
These soldiers are exhibiting extreme stress reactions.
She calculated their ability to fight as severely impaired. In fact, she was almost certain by the looks on their faces that this defensive position was in danger of being abandoned. She took a step up on to an ammo box so that she was standing head and shoulders above them.
‘ATTENTION!’ she barked loudly.
Faces, pale and blood-spattered, turned towards her.
‘Information: the large units ahead of us are genetically engineered combat units. They are designed to withstand significant damage … but they can be terminated!’
‘They’re demons! We can’t beat what the devil sends!’
‘No, goddammit! She … she’s right!’ shouted one of the bloodied men. ‘We got us two of ’em! I think. I saw two of ’em go down!’
‘Concentrate your fire specifically on vulnerable locations!’ said Becks. ‘The circulatory system, the nervous system. Chest and head.’ She looked down at them sternly. ‘Is this clear?’
The men eyed her silently.
‘A single correctly targeted projectile will kill these units! You will concentrate your fire on heads and chests!’
She turned to look down the slope and saw Devereau and Wainwright staggering towards them. She pointed at them. ‘Look! Your commanding officers! They will confirm what I have just said!’
They huffed up towards them, gasping, wheezing, among the last of the men making their way back from the borderline. Devereau spotted her standing out in the open. ‘What the hell are you doing, woman? Get down!’
She ignored his outburst as both men clambered over the sandbags and flopped to the ground beside her. Devereau stood up, panting, almost doubling over to get his breath.
‘I am quite fine,’ she said to him. ‘You must sit down and recover now.’ She reached out for him and Wainwright and pushed them down until they were squatting on the floor, wheezing for air. She knelt down beside them. ‘Rest. Your soldiers will need you to be combat-ready.’
Wainwright looked up, slumped beside Devereau against the dirt wall. ‘Did you say … combat-ready?’ he wheezed.
‘Affirmative.’
He turned to look at Devereau and managed a grin. ‘What a — ’ he huffed and panted — ‘what a remarkable young lady this one is, uh?’
Devereau nodded. ‘A real trooper.’
CHAPTER 85
2001, New Chelmsford
‘Information: the rendezvous location is two hundred and fifty-seven yards ahead of us.’
Liam stared over the wooden fence at the muddy field beyond. ‘You’re joking! … Maddy chose a pig farm?’
Bob shook his head. ‘I am not making a joke at this time.’
‘She must really hate us.’ Sal was almost retching from the overpowering odour of pig manure. ‘They are filthy animals.’
‘It’s just mud and some pigs. Come on.’
He pulled himself over the fence and landed with a glutinous splat on the other side. ‘Ah … now, it’s a bit deeper than I thought.’
The others clambered over one by one and joined him, Sal last, muttering under her breath with each sinking step through the foul-smelling mud. By the failing light of dusk they could see that the pigs in the field seemed to be congregated in a far corner — feeding time, pre
sumably. Or perhaps it was some porcine social event going on.
‘Which direction, Bob?’
Bob pointed a finger towards a space between two long and low pig huts.
Liam led the way, squelching, until they hit some drier, firmer ground.
‘I am detecting particles.’
‘She’s probing for us,’ said Liam. ‘Hurry! She needs to know we’re here!’ He sprinted forward into the gloom towards the space between the huts. Finally there, he jumped up and down and flapped his arms about. ‘This it?’ he called back to Bob. ‘Am I in the right place?’
‘Affirmative.’
‘What on earth is the fool doing now?’ asked Lincoln, shaking his foot free of slop.
‘Motion,’ said Sal. ‘He’s trying to register on their density probe.’
They joined him between the huts a moment later as the last rays of waning light from the sun faded beyond a horizon of gently rolling hills.
‘Hey! Yoo-hoo! We’re here, Maddy!’ Liam hopped excitedly. ‘Come get us!’
Bob cocked an eyebrow. ‘You are aware she cannot hear us, Liam?’
‘I know … I’m just …’ He grinned sheepishly. ‘I’m just ready to go home, is all.’
Lincoln sat down on the edge of a water trough, undid the laces of his boots and took them off. He picked up one and began shaking out the gunk that had got inside it. ‘So, we shall be returning to the year of 1831?’
Sal nodded. ‘Taking you back home, Mr Lincoln.’
‘I see,’ he grunted. There seemed to be a shade of disappointment in that. ‘It will be an odd thing, returning to New Orleans. Returning to work as a flatboat crewman.’
She picked up his other boot, and with a stalk of hay began digging at and flicking out the mud. ‘But that is not what you’re going back to, is it?’ She offered him a friendly smile. ‘Not any more, right?’
He looked up at her. ‘You are talking about this destiny you say I have?’
‘Yes.’
‘I was a poorly educated woodsman with no money before all of this … this misadventure. When I return, I shall still be a poorly educated woodsman with no money, but one that is now smelling of pigs.’
‘No — ’ she grasped his hand — ‘no, Abraham … you have seen what I have seen. Right?’
Their eyes met for a moment.
‘This is all wrong,’ she whispered. ‘This world and … and those poor creatures, intelligent creatures, treated like objects, machines, tools. Your country, fighting itself for over a century? For what? For other countries’ goals? You … you are the reason all of this has happened.’
‘And only I can change that?’
She nodded.
‘What am I,’ he sighed, ‘but a penniless vagrant? How am I to find my way from that to president?’
‘You managed to do it,’ said Sal. She frowned. ‘Or will manage to do it. After all, you are quite stubborn, aren’t you?’
‘And quite rude, so you are,’ added Liam. ‘That’s always a help.’
‘And,’ she said, squeezing his hand, ‘you know what the right thing to do is. The right course to take with your life … no one normally has the luxury of knowing which way their life should go.’
‘You have acquired privileged knowledge of your future,’ said Bob. ‘This is a tactical advantage that you will be able to use to — ’ He stopped talking and held an arm out. ‘Liam, you should step back. I am detecting particles.’
Liam sat down on the trough beside Lincoln. ‘And not everyone gets to see all that you’ve seen, Mr Lincoln, and still get to go back to live their lives.’ He shrugged sadly. ‘Me and Sal don’t have that.’
She nodded. ‘This is what we do now. This is what we’ll always do, I suppose.’
In front of them, a portion of the darkening blue sky, dotted with the first early stars, began to tremble and squirm.
‘Oh, look,’ said Liam, brightening, ‘here’s our lift home.’
CHAPTER 86
2001, New York
Maddy could hear the fighting had resumed; this time the crack and rattle of gunfire was much closer.
She was worried that something, or someone, would knock or damage the antennae array above. It would take just one stray bullet, that’s all, just one … then this effort, the sacrifice, the bodies she’d seen lying side by side like sardines in a tin, all of that would have been for nothing.
Becks was outside fighting alongside the men. She could imagine the support unit was quite at home, content, covered in blood and mud, doing what she did best.
She heard someone bellowing orders, Devereau she guessed, followed by the deep throbbing burr of one of their heavy machine guns. She turned to look out of the entrance. She could see boots and drooping belts of ammo beneath the shutter: the machine-gun teams emerging from the fort and redeploying along the horseshoe.
It’s getting real close.
Both colonels had insisted the three machine-gun teams would be the last line of defence, the fort would be their Alamo.
Clearly these plans were now fluid.
Oh crud … Get a move on, Liam … for God’s -
› Maddy?
‘What?’
› The density probe has just picked up some movement.
‘Repetitive … not random?’
› Correct.
‘Grab an image!’
› Affirmative.
She saw the light-meter on the displacement machine flicker as energy was discharged, despatched along the heavy-duty insulated cables up through the jagged hole in the roof to be targeted by the array outside: space-time being discreetly teased open, an unfathomable spatial dimension punctured with a pin hole.
She watched the monitor on the right as a blocky low-resolution image appeared. The same image as last time: a muddy field, some sort of low hut, a darkening sky. But this time she could just about make out the blurred silhouette of some stupid fool caught mid-air doing star jumps.
Liam.
‘That’s them!’
› Affirmative. Activate the window?
‘Yes! Do it!’
The light-meter, bars of LEDs like a graphic equalizer, fluttered excitedly with the sudden expenditure of accrued energy. Two remote windows being opened simultaneously: one a hundred miles south of here, another in New Orleans, 1831. That was going to drain their charge completely. The rest then … was going to be up to them.
She listened to the displacement machine’s circuitry hum, saw the green charge display silently wink to red, one light after the other.
And the rest was going to be just waiting. And hoping.
Yet again.
Another of the leviathans slowly collapsed to its knees, the thick armour plating over its chest misshapen and twisted under the battering of a steady sputtering stream of high-calibre rounds. Blood was pouring down its front from numerous ragged wounds. It flailed its huge blade-tipped fists pitifully, angrily.
‘Got us another one!’ roared Sergeant Freeman, punching the air.
‘Come along! Here! This is good. Right here!’ Wainwright waved the other machine-gun teams into position against the trench wall. ‘Fire on those eugenics! Upper chest area … there are gaps in the armour! Do you see?’
Devereau was studying the slope below, illuminated now by crimson flares being shot into the night sky from their landing raft — bathing the whole mud-churned and cratered battlefield with a flickering blood-red light. Beyond the six remaining eugenics clanking slowly uphill bearing the weight of their armour — surely several tons of it each, he guessed — British soldiers were amassing in the borderline. He could see officers moving among knots of men, poised to step over the top and support the eugenics with a rush. And there, sitting astride sandbags, a British officer calmly observing the events uphill from him through a pair of field glasses.
CHAPTER 87
2001, New York
Becks watched with detached fascination at the brutal ruthlessness of these enormous beasts
. Their arms swung tirelessly, scooping out of the trench and into the air bloody parts of men and divots of dirt alike. There were no moments of hesitation, no doubts, no confusion of morals or ethics — as much thought devoted to the process of killing as an electric band-saw might give to a plank of wood.
She could identify with that: a world simplified down to the barest essentials, to mission parameters. And that’s where her empathy, her sense of kindred-spirit, with these curious monsters ended. She too had her own mission parameters to fulfil.
One of the machine-gun teams lay in tatters just beyond the nearest leviathan, the thick barrel of the gun still smoking and aimed skyward on its tripod legs. She ducked down low, scrambling over the writhing bodies of the wounded, between the giant’s thick legs. At the same time that the genic sensed her movement below it she reached the machine gun, pulled it off its mount and swung its aim up.
No armour plating beneath it, the high-calibre bullets found plenty of soft flesh to rip through. The genic flailed, enraged, the feed-pipe that protruded from its small face flapping from side to side. She heard a deep moan coming from its chest, its throat; a cry of rage and agony locked behind a sealed mouth.
The gun’s stuttering fire ceased as the over-heated barrel choked on the ammunition belt. But she’d done enough damage. Blood rained down on her as the leviathan took several staggered steps, finally flopping on to the downhill side of the trench. She felt the ground vibrate with the impact of several tons of iron and flesh.
As another fresh flare exploded above the trench, bathing them in an artificial crimson dawn, she took in the state of play of the battle with one snapshot blink of her eyes. Two eugenics remained, the last of them, wreaking havoc further along the horseshoe. She saw arcs of dirt and glistening wet viscera spinning up into the night sky. The few men not maimed, dismembered or dying were beginning to break and scramble out of the trench and run for their lives. And two hundred yards downhill of all this, the British soldiers were now advancing in three ordered and steady lines on their position.
