by J J Hane
“What are you-” Williams began, flinching away from his passenger in horror, but he was cut off as Mac shoved the hot barrel of his gun into the big man’s ribs.
“Stop the car,” he ordered, his nasally voice incongruous with the brutality he had just unleashed.
My mind felt frozen, the bright beams etched in my retinas, seeming to sear my consciousness as well. Officer Williams glanced at Mac, all expression gone from his dark features.
“Now,” Mac ordered, shoving his gun harder into the driver’s side.
“Okay, okay!” Williams shouted. He started to press the brakes.
“Sorry about this,” Mac said, not sounding sorry at all. “They’re all just paying the price to get a clean world. It’s expensive, I know, but somebody’s got to do it.”
Officer Williams glanced at me in the rearview mirror as we continued to slow. “Good luck, kid,” he said.
Somehow, I knew what was coming, giving me just enough time to react. I bent double, covering my head with my arms, hoping that the seatbelt I was wearing would be enough. Mac opened his mouth to say something, but Officer Williams suddenly slammed the brake pedal to the floor, simultaneously jerking the wheel sideways. The SUV shuddered for an instant that stretched into eternity, then flipped over like a toy kicked by an angry child.
In all the old movies, car crashes are loud, sudden things. I was a little surprised to find that the portrayal was actually fairly accurate, although it was a lot louder in real life than on the screen. The crunch and crash of metal, the popping explosion of breaking windows, and the unsettling thudding of loose corpses filled my senses, accompanied by one more blast from Mac’s rifle and the red-haired man’s scream.
I don’t know how many times the vehicle bounced and rolled. When we finally came to a stop, the humming engine and popping metal were the only sounds in the cabin.
*
I got my bearings eventually, after what could have been hours or mere minutes.
The SUV was lying on its passenger side, my seatbelt holding me in position. The man who had been sitting to my left was draped over me, his eyes wide, empty. If it wasn’t for the cauterizing effect of the solar rifles, I would have been soaked in his blood. As it was, it was only trickling out of his chest, dripping onto my shoulder.
A rattling breath from the front startled me. Mac was moving, groaning, clearly disoriented. I started clawing at the release for my seatbelt, my senses still numbed. It was surprisingly difficult to find the red button that would set me free of the harness. Mac moaned, pushing against the broken door as if he was trying to get out, the tilled soil of the field resisting him.
Finally, there was a click, and my belt released. I slid forcefully into the dead woman on my right, which let the dead man to my left slide further toward me, pinning me between the corpses. I heard Mac groan again, fighting his way back to awareness. I had to get out, knew that if I stayed where I was, the traitor would kill me as easily as he had just killed his comrades.
Why? Why had he done it? He had been out there, in the forest, fighting the outlanders. Why did he kill his own people afterward? If he was going to betray the city by protecting the identity of the real traitor, why not just kill his comrades in the confusion of battle?
Another groan sounded from the front. This time, though, it didn’t come from Mac.
Officer Williams. He was still alive!
Mac sat up, pushing off the crumpled door. He looked back at me, face covered in blood, gashed from the shattered window, nose broken by some impact. He glared through the mask of blood, saying nothing.
“Williams!” I shouted, panicking as I tried to get out from between the two dead officers, my hands sliding in the blood. My voice sounded small and squeaky in the quiet cabin. “Williams, help!”
Mac blinked at me, then looked around him. His gaze settled unsteadily on the solar rifle now wedged between the front seats. Clumsy hands reached for it, grappling with it, slowly working it free. If he got hold of it, he would finish what he started.
“Williams!” I practically screamed, tearing my throat raw with the force of my voice. Williams moaned, but made no effort to move. Mac was working the gun out of its place, his fingers slowly regaining dexterity.
I looked around, desperate to find something to help myself escape, feeling like a wild animal trapped in a cage. The dead woman’s gun was beneath her, between her body and the door. The dead man must have put his in the back, because I didn’t see it anywhere. I fought and clawed, working myself free enough to push off the seat and out from between them.
Mac yanked on the rifle, pulling it free. He raised it, trying to get it into a firing position despite his hands being unsteady. I realized that his right arm was broken, barely able to hold the weapon. Still, he had more than enough function in his body to turn and squeeze the trigger in just a moment.
There were no weapons around for me to defend myself and Officer Williams with. I was about to die.
Until my eyes caught a detail I hadn’t noticed before. Mac was still wearing his seatbelt, the shoulder strap slowing him down.
I lunged forward, standing on the limp legs of my fellow passenger. Seizing Mac’s shoulder strap in both hands, I leaned my weight back, pulling the belt tight across the wiry man’s neck. He fumbled the rifle, dropping it onto the door to his right. I shifted my position, using my legs to press against the back of his seat, leaning hard on the strap, cutting off Mac’s air supply.
His fingers reached up, clawing at the belt, but with a broken arm and the after effects of the crash, he couldn’t pull it away. He reached his right arm down, bending it at a horrible angle to snatch at the gun, while his left hand reached for mine, clawing at my fingers.
In other circumstances, he might have easily pried me off. As it was, I had leverage, terror, and relative lack of injury on my side. I could hear his mouth opening and closing as he struggled for breath.
“Stop!” I yelled. “Stop fighting!”
With his right arm, he managed to lift the rifle. I could feel him straining against the belt across his neck. He stopped clawing at my fingers, taking the rifle in both hands instead. He turned the weapon toward me as best as he could, squeezing the trigger.
A beam of light lanced past my face, narrowly missing me. I jerked sideways, pulling hard on the belt. Mac made a croaking sort of sound, nearly dropping the gun. He fired it again, the beam going wide, burning another hole in the side of the SUV.
“I don’t want to hurt you!” I shouted, still struggling to keep hold of the belt, even as it began to cut my palms and fingers. “Just stop!”
Mac fired again.
“Stop!”
Again.
“Stop! Stop! Stop!”
I kept yelling, kept pulling, my eyes shut tight against the bright flashes and the horror of what I was doing. I twisted, pulling, squeezing the man’s neck tighter with the very thing that had saved his life in the crash. The belt resisted, bucked, slipped a little. I held tighter, my hands becoming slick as it cut deeper into my palms.
He’s going to kill me. He’s going to kill Williams. He’s already killed, and he’ll do more. He’s a traitor. There’s another. They have to know!
The thoughts swirled in my head as I screamed, begging Mac to stop fighting me. I yelled, twisted, pulled, leaned, begged, cried.
Eternity passed.
*
There was a banging, pounding sound on the side of the SUV. Or was it the top? I couldn’t tell. The whole world was skewed.
“Please,” I begged, my throat hoarse. “Please stop.”
The banging grew louder. Light flooded the cabin.
“Please…”
There were voices, noises I couldn’t quite understand. Someone taking my arms, pulling on me.
“Just stop…”
I was being lifted out of the broken vehicle, into the cold October daylight.
A voice broke through the gray.
“What happen
ed, son?”
“He won’t stop,” I said, my eyes locked on the dark hole that was the door to the SUV, even as strong arms pulled me away. “He killed them, killed them all.”
“It’s okay,” another voice said, this one soothing, gentle. Rough hands on my face.
“He wouldn’t stop…” I wanted to tell them. They had to know what happened. There was a reason… Something important, just on the edge of my consciousness…
“I know,” said the voice. A woman’s voice. I recognized it, and I knew that she didn’t know.
Tears were blurring my vision. I looked up to see that I was sitting on the edge of a hoversled, Supervisor Baumgardner standing over me. Her eyes filled with concern, she placed her hands on my face, looking into my eyes.
“It’s okay, Raphael,” she said, her voice as stern as always. This time, though, the sternness was welcome. It was okay because she said it was. It had to be, or she would put it on janitorial duty.
“I have to get to Director Kelley,” I told her weakly as a glimmer of memory sparked somewhere within the fog. My voice was raspy. How had that happened?
“You need to rest,” she insisted instead.
I shook my head, my cheeks rubbing against her rough palms. For the first time in a very long time, I felt small, like a little child. “There’s another attack coming,” I told her. “There is a traitor in the city who is going to try to help the outlanders get in. I have to tell the director about this.”
I held up the little black memory stick. Sophia eyed it with uncertainty, looked at the wreckage and then back at me. She nodded.
“Okay. Let’s go.”
She said something to the other people around us. More Security, I think. Then we were off, the hoversled floating above the rough surface, threading its way through the open gate of the city, out onto the main thoroughfare.
We zoomed along for a while, the wind whipping at my hair, drying the assorted blood on my clothing. I found myself wishing Serenity was there beside me. A strange feeling, given everything that had just happened. Still, I closed my eyes and imagined her sitting close to me, imagined the distinctly outdoor smell of her hair.
Despite my efforts to control my own thoughts, my muscles twitched with Mac’s phantom struggles. I vomited over the side of the sled. Sophia patted my back comfortingly.
No. I didn’t want to think about that. I wanted something, anything else. It was all too much…
By the time we arrived at the Martyrion tower, I had pushed enough of the thoughts away to be able to stand on my own, accepting a little help from my supervisor.
The hoversled had stopped on the normally busy street next to the tower. There were guards everywhere, armed with solar rifles rather than stunners, redirecting most of the traffic. The gleaming buildings all around us blocked the view of the fires burning at the edge of the city, but I could still smell the smoke.
Two security officers approached us as soon as my feet had hit the pavement, their faces set in hard masks. Despite being inches shorter than either of them, Sophia managed to glare down at them until they slowed.
“Supervisor Baumgardner?” Both of the guards, I noticed, were older, with more grey than color to their hair. They were certainly healthy, but it looked like all of the younger security forces must have been deployed to the wall. “We were told to expect you. This way, please.”
The guards led us into the tower, past the empty reception desk, and straight to the bank of elevators. One was already open, awaiting our arrival.
“Where is everyone?” I asked. The grand entrance was completely still.
“We evacuated the tower when the attack began,” the lead guard replied. “Only security personnel, the Council, and the Archangel operators are still in the building.”
When we stepped into the elevator, one of the guards gave us a quick nod before returning to his post outside. The other entered his code on the keypad, sending the lift hurtling up to the control room. I wobbled a little before I caught my balance. The last thing I wanted was to show up in the control room being carried by the guard or, worse, my supervisor. I had no doubt that she could and would if she thought she needed to carry me.
The elevator came to an abrupt halt, as though the building itself was aware of the dangers facing the city and it had no time for niceties like human balance. I was ready for it that time, though, already steadying myself on one wall. The doors swished open onto a scene of controlled chaos.
The control room was filled with noise, dozens of people working, shouting, or tapping on screens. Every control console was occupied, some of them by two or three different people. In the center of the room stood Director Kelley, looking a little worse off than before, his hair disheveled, glasses slightly askew. Beside him stood Commander Lenci, silent and implacable leader of the Martyrion Security Forces.
As we stepped out of the elevator, I saw a ring of old people standing at the very top row just a few levels above us. I recognized three of them as the council members Serenity and I had followed earlier. It seemed impossible that it had not even been a full day.
I noticed, too, my teacher, Abraham Holt, sitting at a console by himself, hard at work. His eyes were focused on what he was doing, although he was one of the few people who didn’t look to be in panic-mode.
Commander Lenci noticed us first, nudging the director’s arm and nodding toward us. Director Kelley looked away from the wall of screens, which were still dominated by the red rectangle in the center. It took him a moment to see us, at which point his frown deepened into something even less pleasant. He gestured impatiently for us to join him.
We descended the three levels to the main floor, drawing inquisitive glances as we passed workstations. Technicians were working on various programs, ranging from everyday services such as power consumption and water usage to the maintenance of the Archangel satellites. As we passed Mr. Holt, I saw that one of the screens before him was the same as the big red rectangle, with the other three screens filled with lines of code.
He looked up as we passed. An unreadable looked passed over his face, something that fell somewhere between confusion and concern.
Director Kelley scowled at me from behind his owlish spectacles. “Well?”
“Um,” I said, taken off guard by his forceful manner. He was accustomed to being the man in charge, receiving answers without hesitation. My momentary confusion seemed to grate on his nerves.
“What are you here for?” he demanded.
“Director,” Sophia said, a hint of warning in her polite tone.
The spindly man met her gaze, letting out a barely audible sigh before returning his sour look to me. When he spoke again, he wasn’t precisely polite, but he wasn’t quite as short, either. “Young man, I have a great deal to handle right now. Could you explain your purpose for interrupting our operations?” He glanced at Sophia. “Please.”
I swallowed, gathering up my courage. My vision was still marred by the flashes from the solar rifles. “Director, sir,” I began. I had to clear my throat so that I could raise my voice. “There is another attack coming against the city.”
Director Kelley waved a spidery hand in dismissal. “Yes, yes, we know that already. The savages are bright enough to pull something like this off, evidently. We’ve been preparing for them to attack. The Archangel is fully operational, so line of sight will be sufficient even without our surveillance systems. This is not particularly helpful information, young man.”
“There’s more, though,” I said as he started to turn away, putting more force into my voice. I took a deep breath, speaking from my diaphragm like we were taught in that horrible public speaking class a year ago.
“There is a traitor somewhere in the tower,” I announced, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. Voices quieted down. The tapping of fingers on touchscreens could still be heard, but everyone seemed to be straining to listen.
The director made a choking sound. “I beg your pardon?” he
said, his voice pitched high.
“We’ve been betrayed,” I said, once again speaking loudly enough for all to hear.
“What do you- how- What evidence do you have of this?” Director Kelley stammered, casting an anxious glance up toward the council members. I couldn’t see them without turning around, but I imagined them all shuffling nervously in their places.
“For one thing, I was almost killed by one of our own security officers on my way back to warn you of the attack. Mac killed at least three other guards before we crashed and I was rescued.”
“Well, of course we heard there was some sort of incident…”
“Incident?” Supervisor Baumgardner repeated. ‘Indignation’ was not nearly a strong enough word for her tone. Director Kelley flinched away from her gaze.
“He wasn’t working alone,” I continued. “Someone here in the tower, in this control room, had to have helped pull this off.”
“You’re talking about the computer virus?” Mr. Holt spoke up from behind me. I looked back to see that he was still seated at his console, leaning over the screens to peer down at us.
“Yes. The outlander girl who uploaded the virus didn’t know what it was. She had been given a memory stick to plug into one of the mainframes in the maintenance area. When she plugged it in, everything when down.”
“How do you know this?” Mr. Holt asked before the director could respond.
“She told me,” I replied, hoping that they wouldn’t press too much.
“This is absurd,” Director Kelley interrupted. “The savages must have gotten ahold of some old computers and solar panels, as they got their hands on those artillery they just shelled us with. Who in their right mind would betray the Martyrion?”
“I don’t know,” I told him honestly. “But I’m sure you can figure it out.”
Director Kelley snorted in derision. “Well. Thank you for your assistance.”
