The Bridge

by Simon Winstanley

  “Thank you,” he persevered in her language, “It is… dangerous here.”

  “Everywhere is dangerous,” she spoke slowly for him but made no attempt to speak English; it was one of the subjects she’d never been able to fully grasp when she’d been at school.

  While she drank from the bottle, she noticed him take out a blue asthma inhaler. After checking its side, he placed it in his mouth and took a dose. This in itself was unusual; these days, medicines were hard to get. It could just be an act though, she cautioned herself.

  He put the inhaler away, then his focus on her seemed to cut through the noise, “This place is not safe for you.”

  He glanced in the direction of the dance floor and she found herself thinking of the woman she’d seen earlier. She couldn’t work out why this complete stranger had bought her a drink just to warn her about the police.

  “Your surname is on a list,” he began to explain.

  She’d heard rumours of watch lists; names of people who’d committed minor misdemeanours. In these troubled times, she was certainly guilty of bending several rules out of shape. She took a long drink from the bottle.

  “You’re descended from one of the people on the list,” he continued, “You have a genetic augmentation and I have to get you to safety!”

  She almost choked on her beer. It was possibly the worst chat-up line she’d ever heard. Imaginative, certainly, but she wasn’t in the mood for weird fantasy role play.

  “Merde!” she laughed, “C’est terrible!”

  “I’m serious!” his glances around the club appeared to become more frequent.

  She’d always trusted the pinprick of her instincts, both physically and mentally. She experienced the same uncomfortable feeling now. There was something on the edge of her perception, but muted by modern-day assumptions of safety.

  The mood on the far side of the club began to change, but it had nothing to do with the music. Distressed voices were multiplying and spreading towards her. The dance floor motions halted and became a panicked rush for the main entrance.

  As the crowd cleared the floor, she saw the woman looking at her.

  “Merde!”

  “Shit!”

  They both spoke at the same time.

  “She found me!” he said and glanced towards the club’s rear door.

  Sabine now realised that the policewoman wasn’t after her.

  She was after him.

  Suddenly, the dance floor flooded with people trying to leave the building by any available exit. The DJ had abandoned his mixing desk, but the music continued its relentless beat.

  “Chaos,” the man’s eyes darted around the crowd, “Come with me!”

  She backed away from him, “Non!”

  Through a gap in the fleeing crowd, she saw that the woman had gone; a detail that the man seemed to have spotted too.

  The techno music’s high frequencies suddenly dropped again, leaving only a low-level bass line. In the comparative lull, he offered his hand to her.

  “Sabine,” his eyes connected with hers, “We need to leave.”

  He’d just used her name.

  She’d never met him, and had no reason to trust him. She knew she couldn’t stay here though; people were clearly fleeing.

  Human instinct, perhaps informed by subconscious cues honed over countless millennia, cut through the choices and forced action.

  “OK,” she said.

  He began moving towards the club’s rear exit.

  “Non!” she pointed in the opposite direction.

  As the music resumed, she ran for the stairs and trusted that he wouldn’t be far behind.

  Admission to the club wasn’t free. Most people had handed over payment at the main entrance, but she’d avoided this by making her arrival via the roof.

  Her way in would now become their way out.

  Taking the stairs two at a time, she easily reached the top of the first flight and had to wait a few seconds for him to catch up; apparently she was fitter than he was.

  Pushing through a storeroom door, she ran to the open window that she’d entered through earlier and swung herself out onto the fire escape stairs. Panicked voices from the streets below reached her. It was becoming clear that the policewoman in the club was the least of her concerns.

  The man arrived behind her and began clambering out through the window, obviously impeded by the shoulder bag he was carrying.

  The strong instinct of climbing to escape a threat now asserted itself. The only exit from here was by going up. Assuming she could get back to the roof, she’d be able to reach one of the neighbouring buildings and make her way down from there.

  Whether the man could keep up with her was another matter.

  As soon as he’d cleared the window, she turned and bolted up the rusty steel steps. The higher she climbed, the more she could hear from the surrounding streets. The same panic-stricken sounds were everywhere. Blue strobing police lights now picked out the edges of buildings. A major event was obviously unfolding nearby.

  Immediately, the thought of Exordi Nova sprang to mind. Although Archive were working for the good of the people, a terrorist organisation was doing its best to disrupt ration deliveries. This could very well be one of its attacks.

  She emerged onto the flat rooftop and dashed to the corner of the building. Amid the flashing lights below, she saw the grief-stricken faces of the crowd, but she couldn’t see the source of the disturbance. Behind her, she heard the man reach the rooftop and she turned to face him.

  “Sabine...” he began, but somehow the remainder of his words became meaningless.

  She could only focus on the impossible sight behind him.

  The glowing white Moon lay broken amid the night clouds.

  She’d heard the outlandish tales that Archive had created a moon-base whose purpose was to deflect a massive Earth-bound comet. If this were true, then she was witnessing the end of days. If the only way to deflect the threat was gone, there was nothing to stand in the comet’s path.

  It seemed that the people below were beginning to realise the same thing. They were now running in the direction of the nearby underground tunnels. Those left outside would have to take their chances surviving on the surface.

  Sabine had no intention of being one of them.

  She didn’t recall seeing the man approach, but she suddenly felt his hands on her shoulders.

  “Sabine,” he said, “We have to reach the Eurotunnel in Calais!”

  “Calais?!” she shouted and pointed at the fleeing crowds, “Non! Nous allons au-”

  “They’re already dead!” he cut in. There followed some urgent-sounding English words that she didn’t recognise and he pointed at the shattered Moon, “… It’s our only hope!”

  Suddenly, no aspect of her world made sense.

  A man she’d never met before was ignoring the falling skies and only seemed concerned for her. There was nothing special about her, she thought. Why her? Trying to recall the appropriate English words, she stared at him and asked the one question that was probably the least relevant.

  “Who are you?”

  THE CASE

  She saw him running up the stairs, away from the nightclub’s dance floor.

  Her target wouldn’t get far, she thought; there were no other stairs. Eventually he’d have to come down again. At that point, she could recover the trail.

  She found herself running her finger around the face of her watch. Although it no longer worked, she’d always felt compelled to wear it. It had been a gift to her when she was very young.

  A nagging sensation pulled at her again.

  Almost in response, she reached into her jacket and brought out a round-cornered silver case. Taking hold of the corners, she opened it. The comforting vials of whiskey-coloured liquid were of course absent; exhausted in the line of her Archive duties. The metathene that reinforced her already-acute mental edge was gone, but her own drive to complete the mission should be more tha
n enough.

  ROOFTOPS

  Locating Sabine hadn’t been the simple task that Monica had led him to believe. Rather than days, it had taken weeks. However, being forced to immerse himself in the language had helped him to communicate with Sabine more easily. That, he thought, and the inhaler doses.

  Marcus had always preferred to think of himself as in charge of his own destiny, but when he’d finally narrowed down Sabine’s location to two possible venues, a solution that seemed to be the work of fate had presented itself. The name of a nightclub, ‘Boîte Noire’, was a direct translation of his old hacker alias ‘Blackbox’.

  After bribing his way in, and paying three Hab tokens to secure an expensive bottle of beer, he’d located her without effort. Then the ego-morph woman had shown up and he’d found himself sprinting up several flights of stairs.

  The sight that had greeted him on the rooftop made every other problem in his entire life seem completely insignificant. Hell was about to be unleashed on Earth.

  He turned away from the impossibly shattered Moon and his own, equally shattered, thoughts. It was now vital that they reached the Warren’s safety.

  Although he did his best to explain it to Sabine, he couldn’t be sure that the inhaler was helping him anymore. Given the world-changing circumstances, her first question wasn’t one he’d been expecting.

  “Who are you?” she used English for the first time.

  “Blackb-” he stopped himself. Previously, when he’d used his alias to introduce himself, it hadn’t always inspired trust. He needed her trust now more than ever, “I’m Marcus Blake.”

  For a few seconds she considered his words, then turned to assess the horizon.

  “With me,” she instructed him and ran to the opposite corner of the rooftop.

  Alarmingly, she didn’t stop.

  She picked up speed and leapt off the building.

  He ran to the edge and was relieved to see that she was waiting patiently on a neighbouring roof.

  Marcus was acutely aware that he was more dexterous on the keyboard than on foot. The idea of leaping between tall buildings filled him with a cold dread.

  “Marcus,” she beckoned to him, “Jump!”

  “Easy for you,” he made no attempt to translate, “you’re not lugging a bag around.”

  Even without the bag, he suspected he might still have had a problem.

  Somewhere behind him, he heard the crack of distant gunfire. Things were already starting to degrade as people fought for places.

  “School long jump,” he tried to pacify his own thoughts as he backed up for the run.

  He rubbed his hands together and ran. He could only have been airborne for a second, but it felt much longer. The dark alley space slowly passed under him, then he felt his feet make contact with the rooftop.

  The satisfied smile on his face was not mirrored by Sabine. She assessed his four-foot jump with a look that bordered on pity. With a slight shake of her head she bolted off again, effortlessly vaulting over some low-lying ducting as she went.

  Maybe her family’s ‘Substandard’ genetic trait was some form of aerial athleticism, he thought; she seemed completely unfazed by their height above ground.

  They continued over several more rooftops. Undoubtedly their progress had been swifter than trying to leave the city through the crowded streets. Inevitably though, they reached a gap that was too wide for him to jump.

  The rain, having tried to start several times during the evening, now succeeded. The people in the streets below redoubled their efforts to find shelter, hunching their shoulders against the drizzle.

  Further along the street, red and blue lights were flashing. An Archive utility vehicle was surrounded by a small group of people. In a bizarre series of coloured strobes, he watched them raid its resources. Evidently these people had already decided to take their chances on the surface. In the days ahead, every ration pack would become more valuable than gold. Descending to the street here would be a bad idea; his few possessions would make him an instant target.

  Sabine suddenly spoke a rapid succession of words. Before he could ask her to repeat herself, she turned and sprinted away. In dumbstruck surprise he watched her race across the wet roof; every footstep sending circular ripples through the gathering water. Reaching the edge, she threw her arms forward and leapt into the rain-filled air.

  Again her flight ended in a successful landing but instead of waiting for him, she continued running. He saw her duck behind a rooftop protrusion and then she was gone.

  He felt a rising dread as he tried to psych himself up for jumping over the wide gap. In acute perspective, the sides of the buildings fell away into the dark streets below. In revulsion, he backed away from the void.

  He couldn’t do it.

  “Sabine!” he yelled out, hoping she’d hear him and come back.

  The rain continued to fall into the dark space in front of him.

  “Sabine!” he desperately scanned the opposite roof.

  A cold feeling began spreading down his neck, something that had nothing to do with the rain. Despite everything he’d been through, he’d lost her.

  Fists clenched in anger, he bellowed his frustration across the rooftops. The air took his curses and returned them to him as the quiet patter of rain.

  He had to adapt quickly.

  The way forward was impassable.

  There was still a small chance that she would head north, towards Calais.

  He no longer had a choice: if he wanted to find her again, he’d have to get to street level.

  He turned to check the rooftop for possible exits. Immediately, the broken Moon obliterated all other thoughts. In the short time it had taken him to reach this point, the lunar shards had spread out. Vast country-sized fragments were drifting further away from each other with every passing second.

  Quite literally, everything was falling apart.

  The idea of finding Sabine again in the unfolding chaos now seemed completely impossible. Even the thought of trying to reach Calais seemed hopelessly naive.

  A further debilitating thought occurred: the ego-morph who’d been pursuing him probably wouldn’t give up so easily. Legendarily relentless, he knew from firsthand experience that ego-morphs prepared ahead when tracking their target. If they did meet again, there would be no exploding Moon to distract her.

  A sharp, scraping noise came from behind him and he whirled around. On the neighbouring roof, Sabine was dragging a fire escape ladder towards the edge.

  He felt a deep wave of relief pass through him; a sense of warmth that repelled the cold night. She’d returned for him. For the first time in weeks it felt like someone was on his side.

  Standing at the edge of the roof, she began to raise the thin ladder, and he realised what she was doing. Holding its base, she allowed it to tip forwards and fall across the gap that separated the buildings.

  The ladder clanged into place on his side and bounced, but he managed to catch it before it could topple away. His sense of relief seemed to be duplicated on Sabine’s face. She adjusted her end of the ladder slightly then knelt on it. Using her weight to hold it in place, she gave him a thumbs up.

  There was a part of him that wished he’d had the courage to make the leap out across open space; he wouldn’t have lost Sabine to begin with. Maybe one day he’d have her level of confidence, but right now he’d have to take the less adventurous route.

  Securing his shoulder bag, he placed his hands on the cold, wet metalwork. As he lowered himself into position, the ladder rocked slightly from side to side. An image of a precariously balanced tightrope walker unhelpfully popped into his mind. Looking down only reminded him that if he fell, there was no safety net.

  Suddenly he froze, unable to see past the first rung.

  “Marcus,” Sabine called to him.

  He looked up and saw that she was pointing to her own eyes, telling him to look straight at her rather than the ladder.

  The long serie
s of rungs stretched between them. It dawned on him that he didn’t need to solve the whole ladder problem in one go.

  “Ten,” he recalled an old Basic computer program, “Move forward.”

  Keeping his eyes fixed on her, he reached forward. Taking hold of the first rung, he then allowed his knees to follow on behind.

  “Twenty,” he stared ahead, “Goto ten.”

  Reciting his program, he began the slow process of crossing the improvised bridge.

  The metal flexed under him as he moved, but he looked straight ahead. Although he couldn’t understand most of the words that Sabine was using, her encouraging tone was enough.

  Suddenly, he no longer needed his mental program. The darkness below now seemed irrelevant; he could only see her outstretched hands that were ready to help him.

  As he cleared the last rung, she took hold of his arm and pulled him to safety on the flat roof at her side. Drawing several steadying breaths, he cautiously got to his feet and turned to face her.

  “Merci,” he managed.

  “You are welcome,” her English words sounded unpractised.

  They both now realised they were still holding each other’s arms, and let go.

  Turning slight embarrassment into productive work, they busied themselves retrieving their bridge then set off again across the wet rooftops.

  FLIGHT

  Bradley sat back in his seat and waited for the helicopter to start up again. The journey from Iceland and the refuelling at the Faroe Islands had both taken longer than expected. While some petty bureaucrat sought permission to put fuel in their tank, the lunar shards had gotten six hours closer to Earth. Six damned hours.

  “Sir, it looks like they’ve closed the UK entrance at Dover,” the pilot reported, “We’ll have to reach USV3 from the French side. Additional twenty minutes.”

  “Damn it,” he thumped at the armrest.

  Twenty minutes more flight time, then a Eurotunnel train back to reach USV3. Survival options were becoming more and more limited.