Day Zero

by James Swallow

  “Are you mental? They’re right on our arse!” The thought of being shot wasn’t one he’d ever seriously considered before today. Right now it was all he could think about.

  “Just do it,” she snarled. He glanced back, and saw that she had her Optik out.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Getting a cab. What does it look like?” A proximity alert flashed, seconded from the drone’s sensors. He spied a second drone closing in, and he realised what Liz was planning.

  “Are you sure about this?” he asked, as he tried to hold their ride steady.

  “I’m improvising. You remember the rally point?”

  Olly nodded convulsively. They’d arranged a rally point before coming out – a place to meet up if the worst happened and they got separated. Liz caught his shoulder and squeezed. “Good. Lead them around a bit and head straight there when you lose them, understand? No dilly-dallying, Olly. And whatever you do, don’t lose that damn Optik.”

  “I won’t,” he said, but she was already jumping onto the newly arrived drone. Liz peeled away from him as the first of their pursuers burst through the treeline, scattering civilians. The vehicle was boxy, built to withstand the rigours of terrain and roadside explosives alike. It gunned towards them, and Olly swooped away. The drone was faster now, with some of the weight off – but was it fast enough?

  He hurtled over the park, arrowing past the boating lake. The air lashed him as he crouched low atop the drone, trying to keep his balance. “Bagley, I need a route out of here,” he said, hoping the AI would have good news for him. A moment later, an overlay map of the park appeared on his display, with a flashing yellow line stretching ahead of him.

  Ask and ye shall receive, but I warn you – it’s going to be bumpy…

  “Whatever, so long as it gets me out of here quick.” Head down, he guided the drone along the yellow line, towards the eastern end of the park. Groups of people scattered, yelling, snapping pics – he could almost feel the CCTV breathing down his neck, even as his app made to erase him from the cloud. The APV gunned its engines, and stayed on his tail.

  Bagley’s trail sent him out over the East Lake and he skidded across the surface, leaving waves in his wake, and a number of cursing fishermen. The APV was angling on a parallel course, keeping him in sight as it tore up a walking trail with its wheels, lights flashing.

  An alert flashed – someone was trying to break his hold on the drone. Forced to split his attentions, he almost fell off when he sped past the Hub Building, but managed to right himself at the last moment.

  “Two can play at that game,” he said, aiming his Optik at the APV. He tapped the screen and was rewarded by the APV suddenly slewing to the side as its wheels locked up and its engine went dead. Momentum carried the heavy vehicle down a shallow incline and into the model boating lake with a loud splash. Olly gave a shout of glee and punched the air.

  I wouldn’t celebrate just yet, Oliver. Bogies on your six, as they say.

  Olly risked a glance. Three drones with yellow chasses and widely spaced motors. They were moving on an intercept course, and fast.

  Tidis AV-50 Pursuit Drones. Designed to fly at high speed, on autonomous pursuit courses. Capable of disabling networked machinery – including other drones, I might add – via short-range override transmitter.

  “Wonderful. Suggestions?”

  Try to land somewhere soft, when they catch you.

  “That’s not helpful, Bagley!”

  Oh very well – calculating a new route for optimum evasion…

  The yellow route marker vanished, replaced by a red one. Olly veered after it. Very quickly, he realised it was guiding him towards the street. “Bagley, you sure about this?”

  Feel free to disregard, Oliver. After all, I am only a highly advanced AI, designed for rapid calculation and computation. I’m sure your meat brain will get you out of this sticky wicket in one piece, if you ask it nicely.

  “Point taken,” Olly said, through gritted teeth. The pursuit drones were closing the distance now. They were coming in on all sides, trying to hem him in – or maybe herd him back into the park. Whatever they were trying, it didn’t work. He burst out of the park and banked out over the traffic, heading towards Hackney.

  But even as he did so, a new alert flashed. A fourth pursuit drone swung towards him, as if out of nowhere. Something sparked, and he felt his ride shudder as its systems locked up. The drone fell, a dead weight – the world spun – his vision filled with red and streaks of neon colour – there was a burst heat and light as the dead drone impacted with something and went to pieces – and then he was down and the world was shaking.

  Olly cried out as he rolled across the roof of a New Routemaster, his body aching with the sudden impact. The bus kept going, despite the crashed drone. The pursuit drones closed, swooping towards him like giant wasps.

  On your feet, Oliver, now’s not the time to be laying down on the job!

  Olly shoved himself to his feet and ran along the top of the moving bus, his brain still rattling in his skull. He had no idea where he was going, only that he needed to get there quick. Bits of burning drone littered the front of the bus and he skidded through them as the vehicle picked up speed.

  Best hang on, Oliver. They’re about to–

  The bus shuddered as the pursuit drones shorted its systems. Olly sank into a crouch and tensed, ready for what he knew was coming. There were startled shouts from the passengers as the vehicle locked and careened across a corner, glancing off a traffic light post in a spray of sparks and a yelp of abused metal, before plunging into oncoming traffic.

  Horns blared, brakes squealed and glass shattered as a ripple of collisions expanded outwards from the Routemaster. Olly found himself skidding across the top of the bus and then off the side. He got a flash of the shocked face of a tourist peering out at him. His fingers scrabbled vainly at the metal surface for a few moments – and then he was falling backwards. He struck the roof of a car, rolled down its bonnet and onto the street, hard enough to steal the breath from his lungs.

  Gasping, aching, he hauled himself to his knees. The pursuit drones were circling, as if confused. Despite the pain of his landing, he smiled. Not as if – they were. They were running cTOS facial recognition software, trying to ID him, and failing. Hand on the front of the car, he pushed himself to his feet. His Optik was cracked, but thankfully still working.

  The drones descended, still circling. He could hear the growl of high-powered engines. Albion was closing in. People were out of their cars now, shouting questions. Olly waited until one of the drones got close enough – and struck.

  The pursuit drone had a more sophisticated firewall than a courier, but not sophisticated enough. Olly had control three seconds later. The drone spun on its rotors and disabled the nearest of its fellows. It fell to the street a moment later, disabled by the third. And while that one was distracted, Olly struck again.

  Hobbling towards the pavement, Olly gave the remaining pursuit drone a new target – the Albion APV that had just turned the corner at the other end of the street. He didn’t stay to watch what happened next. Activating the camouflage app, he wove through the growing crowd. “Bagley, give me the straightest route to the rally point.”

  Say the magic word.

  “Now.”

  Close enough. Well done, by the way.

  Olly didn’t reply. He was too busy running.

  14: Sibling Rivalry

  Ro looked down the corridor first one way, and then the other. No one in sight, though she could hear the shouts of the corner boys outside. Colin’s flat was on the third floor, and at the end of the corridor near the stairs. She’d visited once, and remembered the smell of takeaways and body odour. Colin was a confirmed bachelor.

  She eyed the lock, stepped back and gave the door a precisely placed kick, then another. On the third, the lock popped and the door swung in. She paused, waiting to see if anyone had heard or was otherwise coming to investiga
te. When no one showed up, she went in and pushed the door closed behind her.

  She’d spent most of the day trying to get a lead on Colin’s mates, hoping one of them might be able to help her. But they’d proven elusive, so she’d decided to hit the flat, like Billy had suggested.

  It was as messy as she remembered. Clothes everywhere, magazines and games piled sloppily around a ratty couch. A big flat screen television occupied the opposite wall. Besides the television and the couch, there wasn’t much in the way of furniture. A smallish balcony looked out over a shared green space that was mostly dirt and crisp bags.

  She made her way to the back of the flat, investigating the kitchen and the bedroom. She left Colin’s bathroom for last. The kitchen was the cleanest room in the flat, mostly because it looked as if it hadn’t been used. Stacks of takeaway menus sat on the table, and the bin was full of Styrofoam containers and plastic cutlery. She could still smell Colin’s last meal, and wrinkled her nose in disgust.

  The bedroom was as much a tip as the sitting room. She didn’t find anything under his bed other than a dizzying assortment of pornography. The closet had nothing of interest, nor was there anything under the mattress. Her annoyance grew. Colin wasn’t her responsibility, but she was taking the blame for his mistakes. It wasn’t fair.

  She pushed her brimming frustration down. She’d gotten good at that, over the years. She knew better than most that life wasn’t fair. It wasn’t a question of getting hit – it was only a question of what you did afterwards. You could lie around and feel sorry for yourself, or you could get up and maybe throw a few punches of your own.

  Ro leaned against the bedroom door, thinking again about the moment Colin had gone down. The way he’d folded up as the life went out of him. She didn’t feel sick, thinking about it now. Instead, she felt angry. Billy was right, she and Colin hadn’t been friends, but she was angry nonetheless. He’d been a mate, if nothing else. She wanted to find whoever’d done for him, and teach them the error of their ways. She punched the wall in frustration, putting a hole in the plaster. She drew her fist back and looked at it. She flexed her fingers, cursing herself for an idiot. If she’d connected with a joist, she’d have broken her hand.

  Even so, she felt a bit better. Hitting things always helped her clear her head. It always had, even when she was a kid. Though Danny probably didn’t look back on those days with any fondness. She smiled, but only for a moment. She couldn’t find it in herself to be overly concerned with what Danny thought, these days.

  Being in the military had been bad enough, but joining Albion…? She rubbed the back of her neck, feeling worn out. Danny might as well have put a target on her back. Mary Kelley hadn’t mentioned anything about it, but Ro knew it’d come up sooner or later. Especially if Albion managed to take over for the plods. They’d use her – or mum – to get to Danny. And Danny, tight-arse that he was, wasn’t likely to play nice. No telling what would happen then. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be good.

  For a moment, she considered punching the wall again. But she resisted the urge and made her way down the hall to the bathroom. It smelled of mould and cheap deodorant. It hadn’t been cleaned in some time – maybe never. Her eyes strayed to the cistern of the toilet. She frowned, and removed the top. As she had suspected, a trio of waterproof baggies sat at the bottom of the tank, tucked beneath the flush valve.

  Grimacing, she fished them out one at a time and tossed them into the sink. Two of them contained rolls of bank notes and several cheap flash drives. No telling what was on those. She pocketed the cash without thinking about it. Few people used it these days, but money was money and Colin didn’t need it anymore, poor sod.

  The third baggie was more interesting. It contained an Optik external unit as well as an old fashioned flip phone. She knew a burner when she saw one. Everyone’d had one, back in the day. These days not so much. It had a list of pre-programmed numbers, but no names or references. The Optik was more interesting.

  Colin’s Optik had been broken when it hit the ground, and what was left was now at the bottom of the Thames. Ro wasn’t much for technology – she had an Optik of her own, everyone did – but she knew enough to get by. External units would synch up automatically with the nearest base unit. Granted, everything on it would be encrypted, but Colin wasn’t the sort to trust weird hacker bullshit. Colin was a straight out of the box, default password sort of guy.

  But that didn’t explain why he had two Optiks. She turned the device on, waited impatiently for it to synch up, and then started trying passwords. She got it on the second try – Colin had used his birthday, like a proper numpty.

  Files skittered across her display. She zeroed in on a scheduling app and was rewarded by several dozen entries. Some she recognised as legitimate – well, mostly – deliveries, but some of the others were at unusual times.

  One stood out. An address in Hackney, a contact number and a name – Holden. The name wasn’t familiar, but something about the address was, though she couldn’t say what. She’d have to go see it for herself, maybe talk to this Holden, whoever they were. She pocketed the Optik, turned – and stopped. She’d heard something. Voices.

  The walls in the flat were thin and she could hear someone, or several someones out in the corridor. The police? Either way, she didn’t want to be caught in the flat, if they were coming in. She needed an exit.

  The balcony. She moved quickly, out the doors and paused, looking down. Not a long drop to the next balcony, but far enough to make her hesitate.

  Behind her, someone eased open the door. No more time.

  Ro went over the side.

  When Danny spotted the broken lock, he signalled Hattersley. The other man nodded. Danny drew his pistol and eased the door open. They’d spent most of the previous day going back and forth over Colin Wilson’s trail. They’d located his van parked along Regent’s Canal – someone had set it on fire, helpfully. Probably the Kelleys.

  He and Hattersley were in their civvies. They were both wearing their body armour under their coats, with the Albion insignia emblazoned on the chest, but no helmets to hide their faces, and no combat rig other than a concealed P9 pistol. Danny had made the call. Given the Kelley’s involvement, he thought they should be prepared, just in case, but didn’t want to spook the locals unnecessarily. Hattersley hadn’t argued.

  “How do you want to do this?” Hattersley murmured.

  “By the book,” Danny said, studying the door. Someone had clearly kicked it in.

  “Think it’s Bloody Mary?” Hattersley said, referring to the Clan Kelley matriarch. Every Albion operative in East London knew Mary Kelley’s reputation.

  “You can relax, I don’t think she’s in there,” Danny muttered.

  “Ha-ha. I meant you think it’s her goons?”

  “Only one way to find out.” Danny waved him back and reached for the door. He eased it open, pistol at the ready. When no shots came, he stepped inside. As he did so, he saw a flash of movement near the balcony. He opened his mouth to shout, but whoever it was, was already gone. “Clear the flat. One of them is going out the window. I’ve got them.” He shoved past Hattersley and pounded towards the stairs.

  He took the steps two at a time and hit the doors at a run. He saw a figure drop from a second storey balcony to the grassy courtyard, roll to their feet and start running. He paused, falling instinctively into a shooter’s stance. “Halt – I said halt!”

  The figure stumbled – stopped – turned. Danny froze. “Ro?”

  His sister stared at him, her eyes wide. Danny took a half-step towards her. “Ro… what are you doing here?”

  She stepped back, retreating as he advanced. She shook her head. Danny stopped. “Don’t run,” he said, under his breath. “Don’t do it. Please don’t do it. Ro, please…”

  Ro turned and sprinted away, between the buildings. Danny took off in pursuit, cursing the entire way. If only his parents had stopped with one kid, this wouldn’t be happening. She vault
ed a low brick wall, vanishing around a corner. Danny skidded after her, remembering too late what happened every time he’d chased her as a kid –

  Danny ducked. Ro’s punch caught him in the cheek rather than the side of the head, and he stumbled. He swung his gun up, and she brushed it aside, out of his grip, and hit him again. She yelped as her fist connected with the plates of his body armour, and he shoved her back. He raised his fists, searching for his weapon. Ro circled him, ready to fight.

  “Why the fuck you chasing me for?”

  “Why the fuck you in that flat, sis?” Danny snarled back. She lunged, and he caught the blow on his forearm. Before he could recover, she hit him in the side, just below the edge of his armour. He threw his own punch in response, and she jerked aside.

  “Well weak, bruv,” she said.

  “Why are you here?”

  “Free country, innit?”

  Danny grimaced. He didn’t want to trade punches with Ro, no matter how much she might deserve it. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “I was trying to leave, but you had to chase me, didn’t you?” She feinted right, and he flinched back, forearms raised to absorb the blow. She looped a blow towards his head and he fell back against the wall, narrowly avoiding it.

  “Are you here working for the Kelleys?” he demanded. Over her shoulder, he spotted Hattersley, running towards them. “Shit. Trip me.”

  She frowned and lowered her guard. “What?”

  “Trip me, idiot.” He lunged, and she dropped, sweeping his legs out from under him. He fit the ground, catching himself on his palms. She leapt over him and was gone, running full pelt. Hattersley shouted something, but she didn’t stop this time. Danny partner reached him a moment later, puffing slightly. “Holy shit, she was fast.”

  “Yeah,” Danny said, pushing himself to his knees.

  “What happened?” Hattersley asked, looking around. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, just… surprised me.”

  “Looks like they kicked your arse.” Hattersley reached out a hand, and Danny took it. The other man hauled him to his feet. “Should we go after them?”