Silent City

by G R Matthews

  The screen showed it heading fast and true. I could afford a smile, so I did, and slid my thumb across the top of the joystick to press down on the defensive rail guns. The first set of explosions struck my sub. The little craft bucked, reeled, and the joystick in my hand was wrenched to the left and right.

  There was a further series of explosions, a chattering from the rail guns on my sub, and the whine from my engines reached a frequency way above human hearing. The console’s screens flickered, went off and then came back on. Now though, all the contacts came accompanied by two or three ghost images. In the mix and confusion of images, my own torpedo appeared to be heading true to course.

  Sadly, the same could not be said for my own submarine. Without understanding the language, there was no way to accurately gauge the actual level of damage the vessel had suffered.

  My best guess, the engine was about to die. I couldn’t hear it any longer and my speed, even with the throttle pushed far forward, was less than my suit could achieve. I had no large weapons left. The canopy was gone, but I did that. The computer was having trouble, the ghosts on the screen just a symptom. Add to that, the stick controls didn’t seem to be doing much.

  Time to go. I fired off the last of the canisters, at least they still worked, and wormed my way out of the pilot’s seat. A kick from my suit engines lifted me clear and I pushed them hard to carry me away from the doomed sub.

  There was another explosion and the concussion wave picked me up, throwing me further from the disintegrating sub. It was followed by another wave, a smaller one, and all I could hope was that it marked the impact of my own torpedo.

  With nothing else to do, no other threat to offer, and enough battery power to get me back to Base 1, I let the suit carry me down to the sea floor and started walking. It was quieter that way. Using the motors only to clear the obstacles I couldn’t climb or swim over, no need to draw the attention of the combatants above.

  Chapter 36

  The cell was nice. I’d been in worse. This one had a comfortable bed, an entertainment screen and they brought me regular meals. There were a couple of downsides. I wasn’t free to leave and they wouldn’t serve me any alcohol.

  The guards were friendly, if you discounted the charge-batons they held and the weapons holstered at their waist. Their conversation wasn’t up to much, but they didn’t go in for the random beatings and senseless violence that some others I’d known enjoyed. All in all, it was better than my apartment.

  The soldiers from Base 1 had picked me up in one of the city’s moon-pools. I’d surfaced to see a multitude of rifle muzzles pointed at my helmeted head. Instructions appeared on my visor and I followed them to the letter. The threat of death by firing squad was a powerful motivator.

  A crane had lifted me, suit and all, from the pool and deposited me on the dockside. The muzzles tracked the whole process. A few more instructions followed and I keyed the commands into the suit. Oxyquid poured out as the seals released. A helpful soldier stood to one side to receive the helmet, which I dutifully placed in his hands.

  The usual coughing, vomiting and retching followed. My lungs forcing all the liquid out of them and replacing it with city air. Sometimes they tried to do both at once. This brought on the really big fits of heaving. At this point, having seen a man go through something like this, you’d have thought that someone would have offered me a drink or, at least, a cloth. Nope. No such humanity for me.

  The sergeant in charge didn’t speak except to give instructions. These he barked at me in a staccato barrage of words. The basics seemed to be, don’t talk, don’t speak, don’t move unless told to, don’t raise your hands, don’t move your hands, do as you are told when you are told. If I didn’t follow these instructions I would be shot and a note of condolence would be sent to my next of kin if there was enough of me left to make identification.

  I took him at his word and, in the knowledge that there were rather a lot of weapons pointed in my direction, and complied with everything. Firstly, strip down to my underwear. Not a problem, apart from the suit all I had on was the Fish-Suit underwear. I’d been wearing them a few days.

  Second, the march down the corridor covered in the sheen of gel. Surrounded by soldiers, I was shielded from the view of the inhabitants of Base 1. It was probably more for their benefit than mine.

  The third instruction was simplicity itself. Sit in the cell and don’t cause any problems for the guards. They let me have a shower, though they did steal my clothes. I never got to see those again. To be fair to the hospitality, they did provide me with a rather fetching bright yellow jumpsuit and some underwear that was only a little too big.

  Two days later, I was still there. The guard, a man whose name I had yet to learn and they had no name strips on their uniforms to inform me, slipped the tray full of food through the slot at the bottom of the door and bashed his baton on the door itself to let me know his time training as a waiter wasn’t wasted.

  I was tucking into the fish stew and glass of water they’d thoughtfully provided when a shout came from behind the door.

  “Put your hands on the back wall, your legs apart and do not attempt to move. If you do, you will be shot.”

  Facing the wall, there was no way I could see them enter. The multiple sets of footsteps were a clue that there was more than one as was the second voice, which spoke next.

  “Put your hands behind your back,” it said.

  The handcuffs snapped into place with professional speed, ease and a decidedly final sounding click. A hand grabbed the cuffs and pulled my arms up, high behind my back, forcing my head into the wall.

  “You will not struggle. You will do as you are told. You will not speak unless asked to. Is that clear?”

  I grunted in response and received a hard slap on the side of my head.

  “Yes, that’s clear,” I said.

  “Take him to room 3, sit him down and hook him up,” said the first voice.

  “Yes, sir,” said the second.

  My arms were lowered, hands grabbed my elbows and guided me from the cell. There was a soldier either side, both holding charge-batons in their free hand. I could hear more footsteps behind, probably the owners of the first and second voices.

  The room they led me to, room 3 apparently, contained a chair attached to a plinth, a small cabinet on wheels with a screen on top, and a table with two chairs next to it.

  It wasn’t a complete shock when they released my cuffs and strapped me into the chair. The guards backed away and another man approached. He began to draw cables from the box and attaching them to my fingers, toes, and ear lobes. There was also a strap that encircled my forehead from which a cable dangled. The end of this cable went, like all the others, into the box.

  Once he had done his job, the man backed away to stand on the opposite side of the box, turning the screen to face him. At that moment, another man walked in, nodded his approval at the scene in front of him, and sat in one of the chairs at the table. I saw him take a pad out of his pocket, place it flat on the table and begin to scan through the various screens. After a time of watching, I got bored.

  “Hi,” I said.

  One of the guards shifted forward and raised the charge baton to strike me. The man waved him away.

  “Hello, Mr Hayes,” he said and turned out to be the owner of the first voice. His hair was grey, cut short, and there were lines around his eyes. The way he sat, and the way he had come in, suggested he kept himself fit and active.

  “Why am I here?”

  “It is an interesting approach, to ask questions of your interrogator,” he said. “Has it ever worked for you?”

  “Always a first time,” I said and turned my head to the side to see what the man with the box was doing.

  “It is ready,” that man said, proving out to be the owner of the second voice. He had a friendly looking face, young without being too young, with a light stubble on his chin, probably just to prove he could grow some facial hair.
r />   “Good. Now, Mr Hayes,” the first man said, “this will go a lot easier for us all if you just answer the questions simply. We’ll start with some yes/no questions and I’ll ask for any details I want. Don’t think you are being helpful by volunteering information I don’t want. It will just slow us down and I haven’t slept for two days. I get grouchy when I don’t sleep and we have ways of... encouraging... you to be truthful.”

  There was a high pitched whine from the box next to me and I imagined the electric shock running up the wires. Perhaps I was just lucky they hadn’t attached any to my balls. Or maybe that was for later on.

  “Fine,” I said, and tried to smile. “Ask away.”

  I really hoped I had nothing to hide. I didn’t think I did, but sometimes you never knew. The police have been known to make things up and these guys weren’t the police. They were something worse. I’m pretty sure the fellow sat at the table was a lawyer.

  Chapter 37

  “Your name is Corin Hayes?”

  “So my mother told me,” I answered and the noise emanating from the box rose further in pitch.

  “If you don’t get the hang of this quite quickly, Mr Hayes, I can promise you, it will hurt,” the man sat at the table said in a reasonable, calm, voice.

  “Is your name Corin Hayes?”

  “Yes,” I said, and the pitch lowered a little.

  “See. That was easy wasn’t it?” He smiled at me like a parent whose child has just learned to tie their laces. “You were a member of a special forces unit?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, very good. You were contracted to repair the scientific outpost?”

  “Yes.”

  He flicked through a few more screens on his pad, nodding and tapping the screen as he went.

  “I see your child was murdered.”

  I didn’t answer. It wasn’t a question and I didn’t want to go there. Not here. Not in these circumstances. The man looked up when I was silent. He gave me a look, one I couldn’t read and then cast his glance to second man who nodded in response.

  “Do you know what work the scientific outpost was doing?”

  “Not really.” I shook my head. It was the truth, I hadn’t had time to find out.

  “Do you know who owned the submarines that attacked this base?”

  “VIKYN.”

  He tapped at the pad a few times. “And how do you know that?”

  “I was on-board one of their subs. I saw the language and insignia.”

  “Are you now a member of their corporation, or have you ever been?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Interesting,” he said.

  I stayed silent, it wasn’t a question and I’m adverse to pain. He kept scanning the notes on his pad. Tapping the screen here and there, swiping his fingers across it.

  “Why were you on the sub?”

  “They captured me as I was making the journey from Calhoun to here.”

  The first man looked up and gestured to the second man who, in turn, made a gesture to the two guards. Without a word the guards left the room, closing the door firmly behind them.

  “Did you cause the destruction of that city?” he asked and leaned forward over the desk.

  “No.” I had to take a deep breath before I answered.

  The first man looked at the second who, I noted, nodded.

  “Do you know who caused the destruction of the city?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well?” he prompted.

  “A man called Keller, he was the foreman, and a woman named Elena. Their names and details should be on file. They had both been there for some time,” I explained.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  I began at the beginning and tried to describe everything that had happened since I docked at Calhoun. Some bits, I may have left out, none of it important. I talked about my dislike for Keller, the argument we had, the moment I caught him tampering with my Fish-Suit.

  When I spoke of the rest of the crew it was with a note of sadness in my voice. They’d made me feel welcome and for the first time in a long while I was back in the fold. I was back with friends, with colleagues, people with whom I could share experiences. It hadn’t lasted.

  “What about Elena?” he asked of me.

  “She was in it with Keller. I didn’t think she was at the start,” and to be honest up until I had seen her in that uniform I hadn’t even thought about the possibility, “but it became clear that she was. I should have put it together sooner. She was in the base and I assumed that Keller had kidnapped her.”

  “And you rescued her?”

  “Well, yes,” I said. “I didn’t know she was one of them did I?”

  “And you wanted to have sex with her?”

  “The thought had crossed my mind, but more than that she was in need. She had been kidnapped. Seen all her friends die and I thought Keller was going to rape her. It seemed a good idea to get her away.”

  “What about Keller?”

  “He’s dead.” I couldn’t keep the anger from my voice and saw no pressing need to.

  “You killed him?” he asked.

  “I didn’t see him die, but there was no way he could have survived the steam and what it did to his face.” I knew there was a smile on my face, a pride in the revenge I took, and I knew that it was wrong.

  “His face?”

  “I blasted his face with superheated steam. It cooked him in a flash. Even his own mother wouldn’t have recognised him.”

  “So, and just to be clear, you can’t be sure it was Keller?” the first man asked and waved a hand at the second. The box whined and the first man spoke again. “Think carefully about your answer.”

  I did think and then I spoke. “I did not see his face before the steam hit. I could not recognise him afterwards. I am assuming it was him because he brought Elena and me onto the base.”

  “But he didn’t know you were attached to the sub, did he?”

  “Of course not. If he had, he would have killed me in the water or when I was climbing out of the pool,” I replied.

  “And you didn’t see him in the base?”

  “Until he was on the floor with a face like boiled maggots? No, I didn’t see him.” What I did have was a bad feeling about the direction this interview was going. “Are you telling me he isn’t dead?”

  “I’m not telling you anything, you are telling me the things I want to know. I thought I had made that clear at the beginning of this interrogation.” He stood up from his chair and moved around the table to stand in front of me.

  “He is not dead is he? Damn it all to fuck. At least I got Elena.” Though there was small hope of that. The small torpedo would do little damage to a large sub. I had been behind it, aiming at the drive, trying to slow it down. So maybe, perhaps, if I’d got lucky, the torpedo would have disabled her sub for someone else to pick off. “I didn’t get her either, did I?”

  He stared at me and I stared back, trying to read the truth in his eyes, his expression, and the way he stood. All I learned was to never play poker against him.

  “What did you do on the VIKYN submarine?” he asked me.

  “I tried to find Elena, before I knew she was working for the other side, and then I tried to disable it, and send a warning,” I answered.

  “And then?”

  “Then I escaped.”

  At that he turned away and paced back behind his desk to sit down scan the pad.

  “Keller was one of ours,” he said eventually.

  Hell.

  “Well, I am sorry about that.” I tried to sound sympathetic, but that man had killed a whole base. My sympathy was in short supply and I wasn’t going to waste it.

  “As are his wife and children,” the first man said. “You will be escorted back to your cell. I may have more questions for you later.”

  “I think not, Colonel.”

  All three of us turned to look at the doorway. I hadn’t heard it open, but there stood another man
I did not recognise. He was dressed in an expensive suit, clean shaven, hair perfectly styled and a superior smile on his face. Definitely a lawyer.

  “Who are you?” the first man, now known as Colonel asked.

  “I could tell you that, but then you’d have to be killed or at the very least posted somewhere unpleasant from where you would not return.” The man in the doorway took a few steps into the room, letting the door close behind him. “It is safer, for you, to read the orders that were just transmitted to your pad and comply as promptly as possible.”

  The colonel looked the newcomer up and down, glanced at the second man, then at me, before looking down at his pad. I watched the emotions play across his expression as he read. From anger, to fury, to impotence and back to anger again. His face reddened and his hands formed fists on the table as he finished reading.

  “Captain,” the Colonel said without looking up, “disconnect Mr Hayes from the machine and release him from his restraints.”

  “Sir?” the second man, the Captain, said.

  “Do as you are ordered, Captain, then clear the room, we are leaving the city.”

  “Excellent news, Colonel,” said the stranger.

  “You haven’t heard the last of this,” the colonel said. He stood and snatched his pad from the desk, stuffing it into his jacket.

  “I look forward to filing your formal complaint. You can be sure it will be given all the respect it is due, Colonel. I believe bin collections are on a Tuesday.” The suited man gave the colonel a smile so sincere that it passed through twelve dimensions of reality and came out the other side as anything but.

  The Colonel waved the comment away and moved to leave. He stopped, turned and said, “Mr Hayes, this isn’t over between us either.”

  “Of course not, Colonel.” I smiled at him as I rubbed the life back into my hands. It has to be said, I had no wish to ever see the man again.

  There was silence as the captain gathered up his machine and left the room in the colonel’s company.