by Robert Clark
Getting across Second Solace was a long and stressful process. Under the blinding light of day, there was little we could do to mask ourselves from watchful eyes. With their white winter coats, Miles and Whyte did at least have it easier than me who, with only borrowed old garments that did little to stem the chill of snow seeping into my skin, struggled with every second. As we escaped into the safety of the trees, I spotted people running towards the sound of the gunshots. At least a dozen of them, all armed with assault rifles, all ready for battle. But as they reached the breached wall, we were long gone.
Progress was slow. I kept myself low to the ground, leaving the two trained agents to handle any threats that came our way. Both men were armed with MP5 submachine guns with suppressors attached. I wondered what that did to the decibels. In an open, quiet, and awfully still forest, I didn’t think it would be enough.
But we made it across the settlement without running into anyone. It took me by surprise just how quiet the whole place was. During my week of residency, I had never seen the place so empty. Perhaps they were all bundled up in the courthouse, coming to some kind of consensus on what to do next. Or maybe they were holed up in the bunker, ready for a fight.
I led Miles and Whyte to the gap in the northern wall that I had used on numerous occasions to sneak out. The boards came free, and I climbed over, watching for anyone nearby.
‘Be careful,’ I advised the two men as they climbed down beside me. ‘We need to watch our feet here. It’s a minefield.’
Whyte let out a burst of laughter.
‘Shit, Stone,’ he chortled, ‘you are the most gullible person I’ve ever met. You should check the picture that accompanies that word in the dictionary. I bet you’d find your ugly ass staring right back at you.’
‘By all means, ignore my advice. I don’t care if you lose a limb or three.’
He smirked, but put up no counter argument, which I took to mean he would do as told, for now.
I crossed to the fist boulder, and waved the two men to follow. They did, weapons raised and trained on the horizon for any opposition. None met us, so I continued to the second, and third, and fourth, all the while followed by trained killers.
We made it across the minefield, regardless whether the story was true, without meeting resistance, and as we drifted into the dense trees, I stopped.
‘What’s the hold up?’ asked Miles.
‘We have two options,’ I said. ‘I found a side entrance that only had one guy on the door, but there’s no telling whether there will be more or less people there now.’
‘What’s option two?’ he asked.
‘The front. It’s higher up, and where they park all their vehicles. We should be able to get a better idea of what they’re up to that way, but they’ll more likely see us coming. The trees thin out up there.’
Miles and Whyte shared a look.
‘Option one,’ said Whyte. ‘Noble told us about that. She never saw more than a couple of soldiers on guard there.’
‘Then follow me.’ I said, turning, and making my way into the trees.
Branches snagged at my clothes, but at least here I was less likely to be seen. My darker attire blended better with the backdrop of dark pine, whereas Miles and Whyte stood out like nuns in a strip club. Their unease was palpable, and I enjoyed every minute of it. We reached the split in the trees where the track led right up to the main entrance and looked around. No one. Nor, as I looked back down at the settlement below us, were there any signs of activity there either. The lack of life turned my stomach to ice. Something was definitely wrong.
‘This way,’ I said, leading them across and into the neighbouring woods.
As we approached the spot that I guessed to be the side entrance, I swung around my bag and pulled out a pack of astronaut food.
‘What you got there, Stone?’ called Whyte from the back of the line.
‘Keep your voice down,’ I hissed.
‘He’s got food,’ said Miles, his tone hushed.
‘Send some this way, I’m starving.’ Whyte said, ignoring my request for subtlety.
I threw the packet I had opened at him. Some of the contents slipped out and landed in the snow.
‘Asshole,’ he said.
‘No, you’re welcome,’ I replied, thoroughly annoyed. I passed a sachet to Miles, and took a final packet for myself. By the time the food was finished, I could see the clearing through the trees. ‘Here,’ I said, taking a knee and letting the others catch up.
We had arrived closer to the south side of the clearing with a better view of anyone by the door. Sure enough, there were two men, both standing still, staring lazily into the trees. Both had weapons slung over their shoulders, but neither seemed alert enough to be able to reach them in a fight.
‘What should we do?’ I asked, but Miles patted me on the shoulder.
‘We’ve got this,’ he said with a smirk.
With a unity born only from high compatibility and lengthy companionship, the two agents launched out of the trees without a word spoken, and took down their targets. One round each. Two heads turned to mist. The suppressed MP5s were far from quiet, but the noise sounded more like a thump than a crack which, out here, had to mean an awful lot.
Miles and Whyte kept moving, scanning the clearing for any other targets, before reaching the door. Miles kept his weapon trained on the entrance, while Whyte covered me.
‘Tell me, what’s on the other side?’ asked Miles.
I gave the two men a rundown of what we were to expect, thankful that both agents had mounted torches on their weapons to save us the embarrassment of my last visit.
‘There was no one inside when I was here last, but that was the middle of the night,’ I said in a hushed tone. ‘And I don’t know where the lift will take us if we go down.’
Miles nodded.
‘We’ll have to find out for ourselves,’ he said. He lowered his left hand and pulled out the pistol I had stolen, and held it out for me. ‘Don’t forget, we could take you down a whole lot sooner than you could us,’ he said, not looking at me.
I took the weapon and nodded.
‘Don’t make us regret this,’ snarled Whyte.
‘I won’t,’ I said.
Whyte nodded, and moved to open the door.
Thirty-Three
Under the Mountain
Light flooded into the dark, enclosed space. Walls lined with reinforced steel met my eyes, something I had previously been unable to see. Miles took the lead and, with a knowing pat on the shoulder from Whyte, I followed close behind. Whyte slid the door shut behind us, returning the corridor to a void of all light. Both agents switched on their mounted torch attachments to counter the dark.
‘Keep going this way, then we go down some stairs,’ I whispered. My voice carried much farther than I had hoped, echoing faintly off the cragged walls back at myself. Miles merely nodded, and set off at a slow, methodical pace, his footsteps making but the slightest of noises. I tried to imitate him, but my boots were too big and cumbersome to be so delicate. All I could achieve was a low thud thud thud with each step. And anyone who came to investigate likely wouldn’t last long.
We reached the stairs and changed formation. Whyte went first, weapon raised at the elevator entrance. Miles with his weapon pointed the way we had just come. And me, watching Whyte descend, and hoping someone was hiding under the stairs to shoot him in the back. No one did, and we made it to the elevator unscathed.
I peered through the corrugated bars. No elevator.
‘Press the button,’ said Whyte. I could feel the MP5 close to my back.
I did as he asked, and summoned the elevator.
The noise sounded like an old tractor engine. Chains clattered and screeched in protest as they began to heave the heavy object up from the depths of hell. Echoes rattled through my head. The reverberations shook inside my chest. I gripped the pistol tighter and took a step back. I didn’t want to be the human shield, should there b
e a passenger. But Whyte and Miles closed ranks, weapons trained on the approaching lift, and didn’t budge. My role was cast iron. First to taste the bullet.
If it came to that.
The wailing and screeching and rattling and rumbling grew louder. The top of the elevator appeared. My sweating palms gripped the pistol. My mouth felt dry. The body of the elevator slid into view, too dark to see what lurked behind those bars. And then, with a clatter that rang out over a newfound silence, it came to a stop. A small nudge in the back told me I was to open it, and expose my delicate self to whatever lurked there. I took a deep breath and stepped forwards, grasped the shutters with my right hand, and pointed the pistol into the dark.
I heaved the shutter aside.
The elevator was empty. As two beams of light bounced around with vexatious abandon, I exhaled. Not dead. Yet. We piled inside, Miles and Whyte once more forcing me to the front to take the brunt of whatever waited below. I pushed the lower of the two buttons on the console, and heard the incessant clatter as the lift burst into life once more.
Down we went. The corridor drifted up away from us, replaced only by dark, oppressive stone. The light of the torches detailed contours of rough rock, carved away decades ago to make way for the shaft. Stale air greeted my nose and lungs, which only served to exasperate the rising sense of anxiety and claustrophobia that burned white hot inside my chest and mind. I breathed in and out, shooing away the dour thoughts that fixated in my head. Just breathe. In and out. In and out. Breathe.
It felt like an age, drifting deeper and deeper into the chasms of the underworld. My eyes unfocused, leaving only the blurred shapes of movement to distract my chaotic brain. Breathe. Breathe.
And then, light appeared. Not the cold and white of torchlight, but deep and sombre and static. The elevator came to a stop, and once more I was pushed forwards to do the honour of losing first blood. Same approach as last time. One hand on the shutters, one on the pistol, and one deep breath. I pulled it aside.
What greeted us was not like the corridor above, nor the cave entrance even higher. This was a place within which lurked dark and treacherous secrets and, like a mother bear protecting its newborn cubs from an intruder, I was sure we were precariously close to danger.
The room was not much bigger than the average living room, but it's contents would be starkly out of place in any residential home. Steel lockers that stretched up from the ground to the rock ceiling lined the sides of the room, with a single rusted bench sat directly between them. I could make out an assortment of clothes stuffed inside the closest lockers on my right, with combination locks dangling from the handles. Two large, neon yellow signs hung on either side of a secure door directly opposite us, which itself looked like it could outlast Armageddon through sheer brute of will. However it was the signs that drew my attention.
Warning.
Highly unstable environment.
Proceed with caution.
‘Well, that ain't great,’ said Whyte. He pushed past me and scanned the small room, although it was certainly unoccupied. Once satisfied with my initial assumption, he straightened his posture, but did not lower the weapon.
‘Check the lockers,’ Miles said, and with another nudge forwards, I figured he was talking to me.
‘Sir yes sir,’ I barked sarcastically, stepping forwards and trying the first locker. The combination padlock secured the contents from my prying eyes, but through the slats I could tell they stored personal effects. I worked my way around the room, trying handles. Those that were locked appeared full of belongings. Those that weren't were empty. Eight lockers in total. Five of them in use. Whyte came to the same conclusion.
‘Five hostiles, minimum,’ he said to his partner.
‘Better than thirty,’ I interjected, to no response.
‘What's our play?’ asked Miles.
The pair discussed tactics, ignoring me like parents ignoring a child while they have a grown up conversation. I rechecked the room. Hanging off the end of the locker between it and the wall, a crumpled set of coveralls sagged on a metal hanger. The smell of disinfectant was potent even from a distance. I wondered what it was used for.
‘Ready up,’ ordered Whyte. I turned around and saw both men standing by the door. ‘You stay back and let us do the real work.’
‘Demoted from a meat shield. That’s some going,’ I said.
‘You can be our cheerleader,’ Miles smirked.
He put his hands on the door handle and pulled it down. With a loud clunk, it gave way, and Miles heaved it open. Another corridor. One of about a billion down in the depths of the bunker. Two ways to go. Left or right. Miles and Whyte turned left without question and started off down the corridor. But something held me back. Something deep inside my mind. The Wolf.
‘What is it?’ I asked of him.
‘This isn’t the way.’ His voice echoed in my brain.
‘The way to what?’
‘Go right,’ he insisted, not answering my question.
I turned right and started to move.
‘This way, Stone,’ ordered Whyte.
I ignored him. At the end of the corridor was another door. I pushed it open. Hurried footsteps behind me told me the two men had followed. I felt a hand snatch at my wrist and pull me back.
‘Damnit, Stone. When I give you an order, you damn well better-’
But as his eyes flashed across the contents of the room beyond the open door, he stopped dead in his tracks. His mouth fell open.
‘You were saying?’ I said, unable to hide the satisfaction from my voice.
A dozen computer monitors circa mid-eighties sat in rows of six on a long line of desks. A garish green glare emitted from each screen, illuminating the cluster of papers that adorned the walls, and looked strangely alien in such a dark, secluded space.
Miles and Whyte approached with caution, as though knowledge of the place’s existence would cause it to go up in flames. They fanned around the room, checking for threats both human or manmade. Only when they had satisfied their paranoia did they turn to observe the contents of the room.
By which time, I was already a step ahead of them.
‘You two might want to check this out,’ I said, pointing at the documents pinned to the wall. They rejoined me and, as the news sunk in, both men swore in unison.
‘What on earth?’ gasped Miles.
‘I’m not sure what you guys would call it, but this looks like the kind of board a deranged killer puts together before they go completely mental,’ I said. ‘A murder wall, if you will.’
What had drawn my attention was a news article a little over three years old, from a time when Second Solace was but a blip on the FBI’s radar, Al-Assad was assumed dead, and I was rotting in a hole in Afghanistan.
The photograph was that of a clean-shaven man in a suit jacket and tie who stood before a crowd, gestating confidently with his hands while his image was immortalised in picture. The headline filled a near equal amount of space as the image itself, and read “Local Politician To Tackle Rampant Rise In Vagrancy.” I scanned the article.
Local politician, Andrew Parker stunned audiences today at a local rally in Missoula when he outlined plans to put an end to what he calls “the disruptive few”. Parker - pictured above - took the stage to applause from his adoring audience, and discussed his audacious plans to revitalise his home state through the increased funding of greener energy sources, state-sponsored internships, and through the continued development of affordable technologies to improve working conditions.
But there was one topic that Mr Parker - forerunner for Governor of Montana - addressed as his chief concern: a movement designed to drag citizens into the twenty-first century.
“We live in an age where it is increasingly difficult to just bury your head in the sand and forgo our duty to this great nation by upholding the values it was built upon, and yet there are those out there who are trying to do precisely that,” said Parker in front of an audience of
eight-hundred.
But whatever he had gone on to say was missing. The newspaper clipping had been torn on an angle, below which were a series of photographs taken of Andrew Parker at various locations. The more I looked at the face staring up at me from a couple dozen sources felt strangely familiar, but I couldn’t think why.
‘Parker is the target,’ breathed Whyte. ‘Shit. It all makes sense now.’
‘Does it?’ I asked.
‘Besides the fact he has a vendetta against Cecilia Mendes, Andrew Parker has been trying to clamp down on what he calls an “outdated society,”’ said Miles, air quoting the last two words. ‘He says progression is necessary to keeping America on top. Places like China and Japan have the technological foresight to run circles around us, and Parker thinks that unless we stamp out the old ways, we can’t pave a new path forwards.’
‘Which contradicts exactly what Cage wanted with this place,’ I said. ‘He thought society was getting weaker, the more it relied on future comforts.’
‘Two sides of the coin,’ said Miles. ‘No way to tell which is right till the damn thing lands. But if he is their target, what is the plan?’
We searched the room. Whyte scanned the computers for usable Intel while Miles checked through the stacks of documents contained inside the cabinets. I read through the numerous cutouts pinned to the walls that detailed the life of a politician.
Andrew Parker had grown up like so many American citizens. A nuclear family, a happy childhood, and a need for something more. A print of his service record pinned next to an advertisement for a luxurious hotel in New York told me he’d joined the army in his late teens. Rose through the ranks and left with what I could tell was an honourable discharge before the age of thirty. He’d gone straight into the world of politics, his ideals too grand and his smile too wide to say no to. Almost everything I read of him heralded him a visionary, a saint, a leader.
Almost everything.
Because, like everything in life, there are two sides to the coin, and for every five appraisals was one vilification. The first came in the form of an online article from a website called Freedom Fighters, and was as much an attack on the current political climate as it was on Andrew Parker himself. The rise of a controlled state was chief among their concerns, with the author going so far as to declare Parker a terrorist to the constitution. Taking people by the hand and guiding them to the digital age was in as poor taste as declaring atheism, or declaring oneself a homosexual, both of which were highlighted as dreaded outcomes of Parker’s proposed future for the country. It didn't sound that bad. A world where you could be free to love whoever without others being able to smite you down with some higher being seemed alright to me. But the world had already thrashed me with the terrorist brush, so what did I know.
