The Bridge

by Simon Winstanley

  “Where’s Turing?” Marcus spoke forcefully and stared hard.

  The soldier opened and closed his mouth, “I…”

  “Colonel Turing?” he stared at him a little longer then shook his head in frustration, “I’ll find him myself. Bloody disgrace.”

  The soldier hesitated, so Marcus turned to Sabine who was now in full overalls again.

  “You,” he beckoned her over, “With me.”

  As Sabine arrived next to him, people started disembarking from the carriage, and a flurry of chaotic activity began on the platform. Lights in the overhead dome flickered briefly and he heard distant clattering sounds. He let out an audible growl then turned back to the soldier.

  “Escort us to the unloading crew,” he instructed.

  The soldier gave a nod and led the way to a cluster of people who were unloading supplies and equipment from the carriage.

  Heart still in his mouth, Marcus watched the activity for a few seconds then dismissed the soldier. After giving Marcus a salute, he marched away and was soon lost in the crowd.

  Picking up small boxes of ration packs, Marcus and Sabine joined in with the unloading. Following behind several other people, they made their way out of the station.

  Ahead, he could see that the supplies were being loaded onto a small truck but, in the chaos, no inventory was being taken. As they got nearer, he saw stacks of computer laptop boxes. All of them were military spec. There were other equally enticing pieces of equipment next to them.

  He wouldn’t get an opportunity like this again. This far into the USV, he just had to hope that nobody would question him.

  He handed the rations he’d been carrying to Sabine, then calmly turned and pulled various boxes from the back of the truck.

  The other people in the line, didn’t even blink at the action; they simply continued loading supplies and returning to the platform. Shooting an anxious glance at Sabine, they both turned and carried their haul away.

  He knew this period of luck wouldn’t last. Things would settle down and then they’d have to remain out of sight. The rations in Sabine’s arms wouldn’t be enough, but if he could use the laptop to access the local networks, they may be able to find more.

  Reaching a narrow, unmarked set of stairs, they both descended out of sight.

  LANGUAGE

  It had been several weeks since they’d first set foot in the USV. Sitting next to Marcus on the hard floor, Sabine closed her eyes and tried to rid her mind of what she’d witnessed in the village square. She’d watched a person die at the hands of Bradley Pittman. She’d seen the glee in his eyes as the electricity from the hovering drones had taken the life of an old woman. Even now, three days later, the memory was still as sharp.

  Their situation was worsening.

  It was getting harder to find unguarded food and water supplies. Locations to charge the laptop’s battery were almost never in the same place as the areas where they could sleep. Night after night, they were having to hide from the patrols of hovering drones; each one armed with the same electrical stun baton that had killed Marcus’ friend.

  She opened her eyes and looked at the small dark space they’d managed to find, deep under the USV’s ground level superstructure. Surrounded by water pipes and power cabling, this warm secluded location was a rarity. Tomorrow, they’d have to leave here. If they survived, the cold cycle of desperation would begin again. As long as the drones continued to operate, the threat would hang over them.

  Under the influence of yet another dose of his inhaler, Marcus was rapidly tapping at the laptop keyboard. Once again he was analysing the drones’ core code, looking for a correlation to their control network language. Looking for anything that might help them shut the system down.

  She knew the doses would soon run out though. Every day after that, the task would become harder and harder. Every night after that, she thought, the terminal threat would take one step closer. Another thought thrust itself forward: for all she knew, their final hour could already have begun.

  Drawing breath from the warm air, she huddled closer to him and looked at the screen. The drones’ central code was on display; finger strokes pushing hard at the keys, he was probing the core, trying to find a way in.

  “Marcus,” she spoke quietly.

  Without stopping work, he whispered, “Une minute.”

  She remembered the first time he’d said those words to her, and the finger gesture she’d replied with. The insistent thought pushed at her that ‘one minute’ might soon be all the time they had left.

  Reaching over, she began closing the laptop’s lid.

  “Sabine…” Marcus stopped typing and withdrew his hands.

  She gently lowered the lid but stopped before it was completely closed. Without a word, she took the computer from him and laid it down on the floor.

  Turning to face him she looked into his eyes, seeking the connection that lay beyond the boundary of language. As she quietly moved closer, his eyes darted to her lips. Placing her hand on his chest, she closed the gap between them and softly pressed her lips against his.

  Eyes closed, she felt his arms wrap around her, and her kiss was returned magnified. Driven by an urgent desperation, they pulled away at clothing and earnestly sought each other’s mutual warmth. They lost themselves in timeless comfort. Nothing else existed. Nothing mattered except the feeling of perfect connection. A burning bright neural explosion enveloped them both, and they were left in the warmth of each other’s arms.

  As they lay together, in their temporary haven from the outside world, she heard him make a promise. Using fragments of her language, he told her that one day they would leave this place.

  .[>> - -]

  THE GENE POOL

  Even here, several storeys above the basement of the abandoned hotel, Terry could still hear the throb. On his way up, he’d had the misfortune to pass ‘Sonic Desolation’; an angry collective who were doing their best to weaken the foundations by thrashing at their instruments and shouting their angst-ridden lyrics to those gathered in the disused swimming pool.

  He continued to make his way up the steps. The higher he went, the fewer floor tiles there were. Soon the tiles gave way to rough concrete. As he walked up one last flight of steps, all that lay under his cold feet was exposed steelwork. He wrapped his coat around him and dug his hands into his pockets; the upper levels were definitely colder than the crowd-packed basement, but at least they were a little quieter.

  Leaving the stairwell behind, he walked on, giving a wide berth to the open elevator shaft. A few yards away, he could see his destination; a flickering yellow light was escaping from one of the side rooms off the corridor.

  His pink-haired friend emerged from the room.

  “Hey Sophie,” he greeted her.

  “We’re just getting set up in there,” she replied, “Did you come in through the Gene Pool?”

  He didn’t much care for the name that the youngsters gave to the basement pool, but he knew it was apt.

  “For my sins,” he shook his head.

  Her mouth creased into a smile.

  “Like you’re some sorta saint,” she mocked, “You seen Danny?”

  “Afraid not,” he said, “Somebody was on the steps back there, but I didn’t like to hang around.”

  “Alright, I’ll wait out here,” she said and stepped out of his way, “Go in, Jake’s got a surprise.”

  Terry walked through the door and into the compact space. If the hotel had ever been completed, this would have been a sauna room. Its metal grate and vent-work had now been put to the more practical task of housing a small camp fire.

  “Terry,” Jake called over to him, “Come and get warm!”

  “Thanks,” he made his way forward, “What’s the surprise?”

  “All in good time,” he smiled and patted his rucksack.

  “Freezing tonight, eh?” Oliver shuffled over to make space for him next to the fire.

  To a certain extent, T
erry had come to accept the low temperatures as a fact of life, so saw little point in dwelling on the subject.

  “Yep,” he simplified, “Pretty cold.”

  “Almost froze off my mistle-toes,” Megan attempted a seasonal pun.

  “Nope,” Jake rolled his eyes theatrically and pointed to the door, “Terrible, Meg, get out.”

  As they began laughing, Sophie appeared in the doorway with Danny.

  “Soph’ says you’ve got coffee?” Danny smoothed down his hair and sat next to the fire.

  “And a merry bloody Christmas to you too Danny,” Jake replied sarcastically, causing everyone to start laughing again.

  Terry had to admit it, even though the world was in dire straits, he could always rely on those around the fire to give him a sense of belonging.

  Jake passed out a stack of empty plastic cups. When everyone had one, he answered the question that they’d all been asking.

  “It’s mine. I saved it. For today,” he pulled a jar of instant coffee from his rucksack, “Merry Christmas guys!”

  Boiling water over their fire, they carefully created six cups of coffee and sat quietly, savouring the luxury that Jake had shared.

  Terry stared into the flames; this wasn’t the first time he’d crouched over a fire, warding off the night’s bitter cold. He’d been homeless before Archive’s rationing had even begun. He’d learnt to adapt to it, but the others huddled around this tiny speck of warmth were just kids; none of them had asked for this, and he told them so. As he sipped at his coffee, he quietly ranted about how crazy the world had become. He even told them about a peculiar couple who’d paid him fifty pounds to borrow his trolley of metal cans for half an hour, and the mysterious man who’d pursued them later asking about ‘Blackbox and Walker’.

  “Nuts, absolutely nuts,” he shook his head and pointed to the concrete roof, “I’ve got a better roof over me head now than I did back then, too. Whole world’s upside down.”

  Jake raised his plastic cup in a toast, “To our bottoms-up world!”

  “Bottoms up,” he joined with the others.

  The fire burned and they talked into the early hours, but then something seemed to change. It took him a second to realise that the subdued throb from the basement had stopped. There were voices coming from below, outside the building.

  “Raid?” Jake questioned, hurriedly collecting belongings from the floor.

  The single word motivated everyone to move quickly, and Terry found himself on his feet and heading out through the door to the dark hallway.

  Megan was already at a narrow window, trying to see if there were signs of a raid.

  “No,” she said, “Everybody’s outside, they’re not running. Damn it! I can’t see what they’re pointing at.”

  “They never built the upstairs walls,” Jake ran in the direction of the stairs, “let’s get a better view.”

  After picking his way across the unfinished upper floor it soon became apparent what people were staring at. In the skyline above London were the broken ruins of the Moon.

  The bizarre sight made absolutely no sense to him. It was just impossible. In utter shock, he found he was unable to move.

  He suddenly became aware that a helicopter had arrived overhead. He turned to see Oliver was pointing and shouting at Danny. In the helicopter downdraft, Danny’s hair was blowing wildly, exposing an Exordi Nova terrorist group symbol on his forehead.

  A shot was fired from the helicopter and Oliver collapsed into a heap. As another shot ricocheted off an exposed steel girder, men on ropes began descending from the helicopter. Terry suddenly understood what was happening: Archive were going to kill anyone associated with the Exordi Nova sympathiser they’d just found.

  Reacting instinctively, he ran for all he was worth back towards the stairwell, Megan sprinting alongside. The stairs flew under his feet in a blur and they both arrived at the floor below.

  Descending on a rope through a hole in the ceiling, a man with a machine-gun dropped into the hallway. Megan screamed and the man turned around, levelling his gun at them.

  Although Terry was well versed in the building’s layout, the armed man wasn’t. As the man completed his turn, Terry saw him put his foot down in a place where no floor existed. Immediately, the man fell backwards into the unfinished elevator shaft; his gun firing but missing his target.

  In a series of bright, strobing machine-gun flashes, bullets sprayed up the wall, across the incomplete ceiling, and cut through the man’s tether. In the sudden darkness and silence, Terry heard the man impact the sides of the shaft, then there came a metallic crunch several floors below.

  Turning quickly, he saw Megan was frozen to the spot; her hands clamped over her mouth, her eyes wide in terror. From above them, he heard Danny shout a warning to Sophie, followed by the sound of a single gunshot.

  “We’ve gotta get out!” Terry’s voice was a harsh whisper.

  Megan’s eyes were still fixed in a petrified stare, but she did her best to nod her head. More commotion was breaking out above them and he knew this was their only chance. Pulling at her arm, he broke the floor’s hold on her feet and together they ran down the next flight of steps to the floor below.

  Pushing aside a piece of hardboard, they ducked through into another uncompleted level; a maze of rooms with missing floors, bricked-up fire exits, and plain dead ends. Although the men on the upper floors were heavily armed, they would be encountering the building’s many pitfalls for the first time - something that wasn’t the case for him and Megan.

  They cut right and pushed through a piece of plastic sheeting into what would have been a master suite. The feature wall was decorated with graffiti and the floor was carpeted with rubbish. In one corner, a slumped drug user raised his head to look in their direction, then quickly passed out again.

  These rooms had been adapted to encompass a new design aesthetic; the need to escape quickly if an Archive raid occurred. They now took full advantage of the fact. Squeezing through a small gap in the walls, they passed through a campfire-lit bedroom littered with abandoned belongings. Where the en-suite shower should have been, was a hole and a knotted rope that extended down to the floor below.

  He held out the rope for her, “I’m right behind you.”

  She grabbed it and began lowering herself down. As he held the rope steady, a dusting of cement-grey material fell from the beam above him. The metal hook supporting the rope was visibly shifting from side to side in the concrete. She arrived at the floor below and beckoned him down.

  Although he was sure that the rope would easily take his slight weight, he still loaded himself onto it cautiously. Moving knot by knot, something became painfully clear: years of hunger and muscular wasting had robbed him of his strength. Making his way down the swaying rope, he felt his arms burning and hoped that he’d have the strength to hold on. As he approached the floor, he felt a sudden shift in the rope, then the hook above him gave way.

  The drop was no more than a few feet but he landed awkwardly and fell to the floor, the unladen rope and concrete dust following him. As Megan helped him to his feet, noises came from the floor above; a mixture of radio chatter and items being kicked out of someone’s way.

  As swiftly as possible, he gathered the rope and they moved away from the area under the hole. There was only one way out of this lower room; a boarded-up side window. The window’s crude locking bar was open, so he knew that people had escaped through it, but he doubted they could take the same route at the moment; the window would be clearly visible to anyone looking down through the hole.

  Retreating to the opposite corner of the room, they stayed silent and listened to the sounds coming from above. A pair of scuffling feet were making their way towards the hole above them. There was a brief burst of radio static followed by a tinny-sounding voice.

  “Operation Trilithon. Subject acquired. Over.”

  Another voice replied, apparently using the same channel on the radio handset.
r />   “Roger, tag ‘n’ tope.”

  Terry and Megan remained motionless as a flashlight beam shone down through the hole and cast itself around. The radio crackled again.

  “Just leave the others. When the moon shards hit, they’re all screwed anyway. Roof evac.”

  Above them, the man reported his own status and, following several clicking sounds, spat a variety of curses. The flashlight beam withdrew from the hole then the scuffling feet retreated, leaving them alone in the dark.

  For several minutes they remained motionless, ears straining to hear any further movement from above. Eventually the sound of helicopter blades rose in pitch then faded, leaving them in the silent concrete room.

  “What the fuck?!” Megan’s hoarse whisper echoed around the space and she began pacing, cursing at the air again. Suddenly she stopped and grabbed hold of him, “We’ve gotta go! The tunnels! We’ve gotta get there, now!”

  She dashed to the window and held it open, “Come on!”

  Something the man had said, now delivered a cold realisation.

  “We’re too late,” Terry lowered himself to the ground, massaging his ankle.

  “The hell we are,” she strode over to him and thrust out her hand, “Get off your ass!”

  “Everyone who was ’ere,” he pointed to the walls around them, “Everyone within ten blocks. They got a head start gettin’ to the shelters. There’s no way we’ll get in.”

  “Yeah well we’re still gonna try,” she pushed her hand out again.

  He’d spent a long time homeless and knew the way social order worked. Or rather the way that it didn’t work once you’d fallen through the bottom of its grid.

  “You heard the man, Meg!” he pointed at the ceiling hole, “Pieces of the bloody Moon are gonna hit us! We’re nobodies… the least important people on a list that just got burned!”

  Megan lowered her arm.

  “So we hit the London Underground, they’re -”

  “Same thing,” he interrupted.

  “So what’s your big plan then?” she said, “Sit there and… and… just wait for the end?”