Silent City

by G R Matthews

  A dark smear of blood marked the spot where Elena had lain unconscious. Red footprints marched around the small cabin and, sat with his back to me, was a figure in the pilot’s seat. I watched as the figure shook their head and heard the grunt of frustration. It was a sight and noise that made me smile.

  Before I had scrunched myself into my engine room hideaway, I’d employed a simple delaying tactic on the sub’s computer. A few swipes of the menu, a press here, a choice there and the computer readouts had changed into the most obscure language I could find. The symbols and letters weren’t even in standard. They were a series of sweeping curves, dots, dashes, faded lines and bold splodges. I had no idea what any of it said and, by the reaction of the person in the seat, neither did they.

  You could, if you knew how, reset the language by following the steps from memory. You’d have to have an amazing memory though. There was one other way and I’d guess the person tasked with digging through the records to find out where we were going wouldn’t want to do it. If they did, everything they were searching for would be lost. You simply reset the computer back to its default. It wiped the memory and you lost everything. That didn’t bother me, I’d bet it bothered them.

  I slipped out of the engine room and debated climbing the ladder. That would put me in the big sub, amongst all the troops, soldiers or civilian operators. My guess, this was a military sub. There were civilian subs that plied the oceans, trading, communicating, travelling, but for one to chase us down and capture us? Military. Had to be.

  What I needed was a way to move around the big vessel without attracting undue attention. To do that, I would need to look, and act, like one of them. What I needed was a uniform and I knew just where to get one. The engine room had a toolkit and I hefted the wrench. It felt heavy and that was good.

  Chapter 29

  The shoes chafed my heels, the arms were a little short and the waist was tight. I had to leave the trouser button undone and hope the shirt covered it enough to pass muster. The previous owner, now clad only in his underpants, I’d stuffed into the engine room and sealed the door. He wasn’t getting out of there without some assistance.

  Before I left, I spent a moment resetting the computer to its factory default. It would take an hour or two to cycle through the process. If anyone interrupted it, the whole computer would shut down, the data would be lost and the process would have to be restarted. Either way, there would be no data, no trace, and no way the sub was going anywhere for a while.

  Outside my stolen sub, the business of our captors went on without interruption. The moon-pool we’d been docked in was one of three. The other two were occupied. Those subs were not the stubby, protrusion covered, robotic arm wielding worker sub that I’d arrived in. These were sleek, dark, torpedo shaped hulls with short wings, more properly planes but everyone called them wings, which controlled the ascent, descent and turn of the sub.

  The presence of the single pilot combat subs confirmed my original guess, a military sub. The uniform had already pushed me further in that direction. Even though I couldn’t read the name or insignia, there was something familiar about it.

  I held the small computer pad in front of me like a shield and walked, as confidently as I could manage, towards the doors at the far end of the large dock. The other workers kept on about their tasks and didn’t spare me a glance. I was just another worker doing their job. At least, that’s what I hoped I looked like and not reminiscent of a man who’d just knocked one of their friend’s unconscious and stolen his clothes.

  The dock door was open and I passed into the sub proper. None of the signs were in standard and the script tickled something at the back of my mind. It was all straight lines, no curves. It didn’t look to be so much written as carved. The bells were pealing in my brain, but my ears weren’t listening. It would come to me at some point. If it was important, I’d prefer it to be sooner rather later.

  There were some things that were standard on the sub. The colour coding on the walls, for instance. Long stripes that ran the length of the corridor to indicate the direction of essential services. Red for the command centre, orange for engineering, green for the medical bay and so on. I’ve no idea how it became the standard for all military subs, but it was and I was grateful. My second reason to be grateful was that, unlike many men, I wasn’t colour-blind. The military had strange ideas sometimes.

  I chose the indigo strip, noted the direction of arrows within it and smoothly altered my direction. The corridors themselves were narrow, enough for two abreast and no more. I passed by bunk rooms, a mess hall, four toilets, and a rec room before the stripe led me to the information centre.

  These typically housed the computer core, the sensor equipment, readouts, maps, SONAR and other systems needed to keep the sub from crashing into other subs or mountains that rose from the sea floor. It was occupied.

  Three soldiers, two men and a woman, sat at their consoles, tapping the keys, poking the screens and muttering to themselves. Each wore a headset and had a microphone boom in front of their mouths. There were five more consoles, all of them empty.

  I walked into the room and headed to one of the free consoles. The soldiers didn’t look around. They stayed focused on their tasks and I was able to slip into a seat behind them all.

  The keyboard was covered in that same script, the one I couldn’t read. The screen was the same. Luckily, the addition of icons made it easier to choose the correct programme. The navigation and maps were my first stop. I didn’t need to be able to read the language to know what it said. I just didn’t particularly like what it told me.

  This sub was not alone. There were five others. One to either side, and three directly behind, following. It was a standard sailing pattern. The flankers were clear of this sub’s noise and could stretch their sensors out to front, side and behind. Those behind were blind to most things apart from the sub in front, but that served to mask their presence from anyone seeking them. A tight beam laser or even, and more secure, an insulated wire carried all the information the following subs would need to maintain an overview of the situation.

  The second piece of bad news, the destination of these military subs, Base 1. Given the destruction of the Silent City it was unlikely they were going there to offer their apologies. I took note of their ETA. At least the numbers were in standard, another thing to be grateful for.

  I closed the map and picked the sub schematic, noting the layout. Engines at the back, docks at the front, bridge in the middle, protected by the rest of the hull. Weapon systems were located at the strategic points to give covering fire on all aspects. Torpedoes formed the main bulk of the offensive weaponry, supported by a large rail gun that only fired forwards and some close defence rail guns that would take out any enemy torpedoes or fighter-subs.

  It was well armed. It was going towards my home Corporation. Elena was on-board. So was I. Decisions, decisions.

  “Hello?” the accented voice said from my left.

  Bugger. I tapped the keyboard, clearing the screen I had been looking at, giving myself a second to prepare before I turned to look.

  “Hello.” I smiled up at him, and up, and up. Good lord, he was tall. Blond hair, blond beard, blue eyes, no smile.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Just checking something.” I tried another smile and jiggled the pad I had brought in with me.

  “I don’t know you,” he said.

  “That’s true.” No point arguing. He didn’t know me and I didn’t know him. Any story I could come up with would be too easy to pick apart. If I let him do the talking, I couldn’t say too much that would sound false. I watched him think for a few seconds. His mouth opened and closed a time or two.

  “Why are you in here? You are not assigned to this station.”

  “Just checking some information about the sub we brought in,” I said. It was a version of the truth. I waved the pad one more time.

  With large hands, he reached out and took it fr
om me. His eyes scanned the information on it, pressing his thick fingers to the screen a few times, swiping them back and forth, and flicking through the data.

  “It says here,” he began and pointed at the pad. I stood as he spoke and took the pad from his hands.

  “Yes, interesting isn’t it. Anyway, it has been good to meet you, but I have to report back.”

  The befuddlement was clear in his crystal eyes, as I took a slow, confident walk from the room. My hands were covered in sweat, but the firm grip on the pad covered up the trembles.

  Five big, heavily armed subs were on their way to Base 1. They were not going on a friendly visit. I needed to do something to slow them down. Sabotage the engines? No, that would stop just this one. Invade the bridge? Unlikely to succeed on my own. Recruit others? Where from? Train this sub’s weapons on the others? That plan had merit, though it was likely that the torpedoes had Friend or Foe systems built in. The close range rail guns might do some damage, cause some confusion. Maybe the city would hear the weapon fire and be forewarned.

  I checked the wall stripes, turned away from the weapon systems and headed off down the corridor. The pad was a good prop and I kept my gaze upon it, shaking my head every so often.

  Chapter 30

  The hardest thing about the walk through the sub was not getting dragged into conversations or being given orders by the ranks above. In that regard, it was just like my military service. Everyone higher in rank used that as an excuse to avoid doing their own work and passed it on to you. The shit always rains down, we used to say. Here was no different. I waved the pad or pointed to it whenever someone tried to stop me.

  The sub was big. The schematics I’d peeked at told me as much, but the reality was tiring on the legs. Walk, turn, check the stripes, walk, turn and more walking. Soldiers moved around on their own business. It was all surprisingly easy and I carried a strange sense of disappointment the whole way.

  At the end of the anti-climactic journey, I entered a room with only one other occupant. A woman sat hunched over a keyboard and screen, typing away furiously. Above her, four screens showed a readout of systems, power flows and other bits of information that I couldn’t understand. It was all labelled with that same script and, for a moment, I had a flash of memory.

  A man, blond hair and beard, quaffing a large mug of foaming beer and grinning madly as half of it spilled off his chin and down the uniform he wore. The taste of the sweet mead in my own mouth and an answering smile. Before I was married, before Tyler was born. A time when I was in the military.

  I paused in the doorway as the memory lost its blurry edges and came clear. The signing of the treaty and the party afterwards. I’d been part of the force that went along to protect the top echelons. My small group of Fish-Suit troops had been tasked with ensuring there were no surprises being planned by the then enemy. It had all gone smoothly, war is opportunity but it is also costly, and the treaty was signed.

  The after-party was legendary. They could drink and back then I was not the hardened, alcohol dependent wreck I was today. I could recall the first bit of the evening, but everything after the third pint was blur. The morning after, she was tall, blond, with firm muscles everywhere and I have no idea what her name was. That was a long time ago.

  I was on VIKYN sub and, it seems, the treaty was over and done with.

  There were other consoles, other screens and keyboards, but they all flashed a single cursor and a few demanding symbols. I took the guess that they were asking a user to login and I didn’t have a passcode. What I needed was one that was already open and luckily, there was one. If only the current user would make herself absent from the station. However, she didn’t look like she was going anywhere.

  I could talk to her. Tell her that the captain wanted to see her. I could be pretty convincing at times though my lack of accent, language and knowledge would make that three times as difficult as I wanted it to be.

  So, talk was out of the question which just left the other way. It was fast becoming my signature move. A few more times and I’d be teaching it during an unarmed combat class to new recruits. Before she could turn or register my presence, I curled one arm around her neck and up under her chin. With my other hand, I grabbed the choking arm and added its strength to the pressure. My arms cut off the supply of air and the blood flow from both her carotid arteries. By pulling her back in the chair at the same time, I took away her leverage to escape.

  With air, you can struggle for time. If you’ve trained in a Fish-Suit, you can struggle for quite some time. However, without blood to your brain a few seconds is all it takes to become unconscious. Keep it up or a few seconds more and that brief sleep can be extended by hours. A few more seconds and you could kill someone. It was all in the timing. Too little and they’d wake up whilst you were about your business. Too much and you’d kill them. I’ve never considered myself a murderer and today wasn’t the day to start. As soon as she stopped struggling, I bashed her head twice against the console. She’d have a headache when she woke up, but she would wake up.

  I took her chair and let her sleep on the floor next to it. The screen was covered in those VIKYN symbols which I couldn’t read. If I’d had in-eyes, like Derva or the Mayor, it would all be clear. It didn’t matter, like the others it had icons I could use to navigate most of it. And, like everything else, it was colour coded. Green was good, yellow was a warning and red meant bloody hell something is going wrong or don’t press that.

  I flicked through the icons, getting a feel for their meaning and systems. What I wanted was something that would slow the subs down, make them to stop, or cause them to emit noise that the city could pick up. I tried for all three.

  This room had access to, and controlled, all the communications throughout this sub. It also maintained the thin wire that linked all the other subs together. A little mischief here should go a long way.

  First job, disrupt the on-board communications. Make it so that workstation couldn’t talk to workstation, that orders didn’t make it to their intended recipient and confusion would reign. It was a simple task of changing the links around, rerouting the bridge to the kitchens, kitchen to engine room and so on. Dragging and dropping those multi-coloured lines from one place to another. I had no idea who I was making talk to who, it didn’t matter.

  Second, slow them down. I cut the internal links between the computer core and the reactor. This set alarms off all over the ship. Someone was shouting through the unconscious woman’s headset. I’d no idea what they were saying. It sounded urgent.

  Last job. I flicked the icon that disconnected, I hoped, all the wire links. If the shouting had been loud before, the poor woman would be deafened by the volume now. All things considered, I did her favour by knocking her out, but I doubt she’d thank me.

  The main lights went off and red lights took their place. Klaxons and alarms drowned out the headset. Time to go. I closed the door behind me and joined the military personnel scrambling to their posts.

  I picked the stripe I wanted and rushed along with them. There was shouting and officers, I picked them out by their need to wave at everyone else with the pretence that they were in control, berating the troops at every turn. Every time someone waved at me, shouted at me or stood in my way, I raced past without acknowledging them.

  Chapter 31

  The medical bay bustled with doctors and attendants all locking down equipment, setting up triage tables. It was clear they had drilled for this. There was always the chance this could be real and, given the heightened confusion, red lighting, alarms and lack of orders from the bridge, I hoped many felt this was real.

  “Get out of the way”. One of the nurses shouted at me and I took a step to the side. He rushed past, arms full of bandage rolls.

  I did my best to slip inbetween them all and get a good look around. The screens, high up on the wall, showed the names of the current patients and their vital signs. At least, that is what they were supposed to do, but the l
ack of people on the beds made the screen useless.

  Where was Elena? They must have brought her here. It was, according to the schematic I had seen a little while ago, the only medical facility on the sub. I grabbed a nearby nurse, stopping him in his tracks.

  “Where is the woman they brought in earlier?” The noise and rushing about would, hopefully, cover my lack of accent. Still, I made my best stab at it. A theatrical agent would never be knocking on my door, fame as a clip-star would never be mine. I could live with that, if I lived through the next few hours and days.

  “Woman?”

  “Yes.” I waved in the general direction of the beds and held up the computer pad as the reason to be here. “Head injury.”

  “Let me check.” The nurse moved to a console, tapped the keys, shook his head and came back. “Minor wound, released and transferred.”

  “Transferred? To where?”

  “It doesn’t say.” The nurse moved away before I could ask him for more information.

  I was left standing in the middle of the rushing medics, wondering where to go next. Transferred? Where do you transfer someone to on a sub? Well, either to interrogate them and in the current confused state that was unlikely, which left the brig, if the sub had one. If it didn’t then I really had no idea where to look. The idea of stopping everyone on the sub and asking them was ludicrous. However, the idea of leaving her on the sub was not one that filled me with joy either.

  “You.” The word was shouted above the noise of everyone else.

  I turned towards the door and began to walk out of the room. No destination in mind, just the need to get out of here before someone gave me orders, or realised I didn’t belong.

  “Stop. You. Stop.”

  Just keep moving, I told myself. No need to stop. Get out in the corridor and merge with the rest of the crew. I wasn’t as tall as most, nor did I have the beard that many seemed to wear. A day or two’s stubble was most I could boast at the moment.