Fogbound- Empire in Flames

by Gareth Clegg

  “You don’t understand,” Nathaniel said, catching her eyes. “They’re all gone. It’s been almost four years since you crashed here.”

  That got her attention. She remained silent for a while. “Four years?”

  “Yes, it’s May 14th, 1899. You’ve lain buried under a collapsed building all this time.”

  The confusion spread across her face. “That can’t be right. I was piloting Angel-One just yesterday, heading to intercept more of the alien fighting machines swarming up the Thames.”

  “Okay,” Nathaniel said, “let’s do it this way. What do you remember from then?”

  Wrinkles formed on her forehead as she scowled at him. “I engaged the enemy, but two more joined from the ruins of Westminster. I destroyed one, but the others caused severe damage to my suit, and I returned to Angel-One.

  “From there, the weapons platform took a lucky hit, and vented gas, there was fire everywhere. I gave the order to abandon ship but had to keep her steady enough for the rest of the crew to get out. By the time everyone else who could leave had gone, it was too late. I tried to reach the Plaistow Marsh, but she was falling apart around me.”

  She twisted to look over her shoulder at the remains of the metallic feathers protruding from the rear of her armour. “My wings were useless, so I rode her down, crashing into the houses in a ball of flame. I remember the screaming of tortured metal as we hit the ground and the spare gas tanks exploded, searing flames, being flung through the air, and then waking up here.”

  “It may feel like it was just a day ago, but your suit has kept you alive for the last four years, somehow sustaining your body as the battery drained.”

  Gabriel looked up at him. “But what of the Martians? What’s happened?”

  “They’re gone,” Nathaniel said. “They only lasted a few months after they took total control.”

  “So we won?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” Nathaniel replied. “The fall of Angel-One was the end for the resistance. But we didn’t defeat them. They were susceptible to the earth’s bacteria. They had no immunity, and it killed them all in a matter of weeks.”

  Gabriel fell silent for a few seconds. “They’re gone.”

  “Ah, but they have left us with some nasty surprises,” Nathaniel continued. “The Martian weed has taken a stranglehold, and the wilderness is overrun. It’s also responsible for the red fog, the pollen from the weed mixes with the fog, and it’s deadly if you get caught out in it. Breathe enough, and it leads to all kinds of disease and death.”

  “And what of the Empire? Who rules?”

  Nathaniel released a heavy sigh. “Well, that’s a whole other story. Victoria’s granddaughter returned as the oldest remaining in line to the throne, and she is now Empress.”

  “Then I must go to her. It’s my sworn duty to protect the ruler of the Empire.”

  Nathaniel held up his hands to stop Gabriel. “We need to talk before you do anything, there’s a lot you still don’t know. We believe there is a conspiracy within the Black Guard, which means they may already have replaced the young Empress with an imposter as their puppet.”

  Gabriel’s face hardened. The pale blue of her eyes was like ice, he could feel the anger emanating from her, and it chilled him to the core.

  She looked at each of the assembled group and back to Nathaniel. “Tell me everything.”

  32

  Another shot rang out, and Simmons cursed again. “I’m damned useless.”

  “It’s not that bad,” Isaac said from the chair behind the church.

  Simmons snorted. “You’d be better off replacing those bottles with two barn doors. I might hit something then, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”

  “It’s bound to take time to adjust. You’ve spent your entire life sighting with your right eye, and now you’re trying to shoot bottles on a wall with your left? You’re expecting too much, Mr Simmons.”

  “If I am to be of any use, I need to adapt. My aim is God-awful. I’ll be more of a menace to our side than the enemy.”

  Isaac walked over to stand beside him. “What you need is a break, you’ve been going at it non-stop for hours. How about a cuppa?”

  Simmons sighed. “That might be wise.”

  “I’ll go see what I can organise with the reverend.” Isaac turned and headed back to the rectory, leaving him to his thoughts.

  He’d tried an hour shooting with his right hand and hit nothing. His hold was steady, and the grip was solid. He controlled the trigger as he always had, yet his aim was woeful. He hadn’t realised how much his body naturally aligned arm and eye until now.

  With the sight gone, it forced him to gauge the shot from the left, and it wasn’t the same. After trying his usual stance to no avail, he attempted altering it to more chest on. When that failed, he swivelled his head to align his weaker eye closer to the line of the barrel, but that didn’t work for him either.

  After becoming fed up with continued failure, he tried shooting with his other hand for a while. His aim felt better, but his control of the pistol was poor. His grip was weak, and his command of the trigger was appalling. Instead of a measured squeeze, all he could manage was a reckless pull, all strength and no finesse. It was like learning all over again.

  No, the left was even more disheartening than his right hand. His head ached—perhaps Isaac’s suggestion wasn’t a bad one. A nice cup of tea then back to it. Maybe try the rifle, he thought. It can’t be any worse than the pistol. All he needed were a few consecutive hits on the target, something to give him an ounce of confidence.

  He’d been a miserable sod with Bazalgette last night, and now he felt like a petulant child. Kicking and screaming at the world when it refused to bow to his will. As he unpacked the elephant gun, the tinkle of cups on saucers reached his ears.

  Isaac returned carrying a tray with a pair of teacups. A steaming black teapot, wedged between them, caused the rattling, as it pushed the china to the edge, tilting everything just enough to be touching the pot’s bulbous sides.

  A small silver sugar bowl and blue porcelain jug of milk sat precariously, tempting gravity to give them a tiny pull.

  “Tea?” Isaac said, “with milk and sugar if I remember right?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  They sat and drank. Isaac watched the waterway and the idle rise and fall of his vessel. “I miss her, you know,” he said without warning. “Betsy, that is. That’s why I couldn’t leave her here to go gallivanting about with the others. It’s like being wed again, I think. She needs me to spend time with her to make sure she’s happy. I take care of her, and she looks after me in return. I’m getting on, and I’ve found I dislike change more than ever before.” He turned to Simmons. “Don’t suppose that makes much sense to you? Ignore the ramblings of an old man.”

  Simmons looked up from his tea. “No, I understand what you mean. I’ve resisted it, and perhaps it’s part of the problem I’m having with adapting my aim.”

  He found himself believing what he’d said. Rather than wallowing in what had been, if he embraced the change, would that work?

  “Right,” he said standing. “Let’s get back to shooting the air around these damned targets.”

  “Right you are, Mr S.”

  Simmons reached down to pat the beautiful wooden stock of the Holland & Holland rifle and strapped it back into its case. No, I’m not giving up on the pistol. I will master this or exhaust myself trying.

  Instead of aiming, he let his body and muscle memory take over. With the Mauser hanging at his side, he brought it up to position and fired in one flowing motion.

  He missed—but it had been much closer. The chip he’d made in the wall was about an inch from the target. He reset and repeated the process. Shattered glass tumbled to the ground as the bottle exploded.

  Isaac leapt to his feet, whooping in delight. “You only went and bleeding done it.”

  “Let’s keep things in perspective, that could have been pure luck. With the
number of rounds I’ve shot today, I was bound to hit something sooner or later.”

  Turning to the other bottle, Simmons raised and fired again. It stared back defiantly from the wall, but he was sure he hadn’t been far off. “Perhaps I’m being too harsh on myself. How about we round up something a little more man-sized?”

  They spent half an hour locating various items and laying them out, creating a set of four crate-legged, barrel-chested, bucket heads. Isaac secured the parts together so he wouldn’t always be walking over to reset them. Kind of him to express that much confidence in his ability to hit them, let alone dislodge any. All that was missing was the black paint for their uniforms, but he had a good imagination.

  “Now these evil fellows are in for an unpleasant surprise,” he said as he reloaded his pistol.

  The Mauser barked four rapid shots, each followed by a clang as the round punched through each of the metal buckets. They were less than perfect, the third shot had clipped the edge, but the others were solid hits around the centre of their heads. Three dead and one writhing on the floor, screaming. It was a more than satisfactory result this early in his retraining.

  A smile brightened his dour expression, and Isaac grasped him with a hearty handshake. “Well that showed them now didn’t it?”

  It had indeed, and more importantly, it had shown Simmons he was capable, he could do this and get over his injury.

  He spent the rest of the afternoon making new holes in his makeshift enemies. They had proven quite the opposition against the pistol, but as he switched to the rifle, they disintegrated leaving heaps of splintered wood and mangled metal.

  He packed his weapons away as dusk descended, and took a sip from his engraved hip-flask before offering it to Isaac. “I feel this calls for a celebration.”

  33

  Nathaniel brought Gabriel up to speed on everything that had happened in the four years she had lost. He finished the tale with the recent events leading them to the pocket watch and finding her in the cramped cellar.

  She sat in silence, absorbing the news and what it meant for the Empire. “We need to find your other friends and make plans. Maybe ArcNet has been in shutdown for the last four years, much as I have.”

  “What does that mean?” Nathaniel asked. “What is ArcNet?”

  “It’s the network that linked all the ArcAngels. It was a secretive project, few people even knew of its existence, let alone where to find us. If anyone else survived the war, that’s where they would go.”

  “What about Robertson and the Black Guard? Would they know where it was?”

  “No, the Empress didn’t trust them. Things were changing during the last couple of years before the invasion. The military split when they formed, a lot of bad blood between the different commanders. Robertson was a junior officer then, but from what you have told me, it seems he has risen through the ranks. He seemed to be the kind of man to exploit the smallest opportunity to advance his agendas. There was talk of several of the more experienced officers being forced out by a scandal. However, everything changed with the chaos that ensued when the Martians arrived .”

  “So, where is this ArcNet?” Rosie asked.

  Gabriel glanced at her for a second. “I’m not sure I can tell you,” she replied. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, I need to get my bearings, to work out where it is relative to our current location. I know it sounds vague, but you’ll have to bear with me on this.”

  “That’s fine,” Nathaniel said, “but before any of that, we must get you on your feet. I doubt we can carry you, even with myself and Maddox, unless…” he paused as his brain clicked into calculation mode.

  “Unless what?” Gabriel asked.

  “Unless we removed the armour and left it here. We could come back for it. I’m sure with the rest of our group, we could do it in a few trips.”

  The smile fell from Gabriel’s face. “That’s not possible,” she said, her voice monotone. Her eyes settled on the rubble strewn across the surrounding ground. “It’s more than just armour.”

  Nathaniel felt the frown as his eyebrows bunched together. “What do you mean?”

  “Most of it is no longer removable. It maintains what is left of me.” She let out a long breath, returning her eyes to meet Nathaniel’s. “Almost half of my body is useless or destroyed. The ArcAngel program was the last resort, the final chance at living a fulfilling life. They told us there were no guarantees, but our lives were over otherwise, so what the hell? Die there, no use to anybody, or take the risk to be reborn as protectors of the Empire? It was an easy choice.”

  Nathaniel’s eyes widened. “Hence, the name. They created you from ruined flesh into bio-mechanical perfection. This was Tesla and Dent’s true work, producing a hybrid man-machine?”

  “Yes,” she said, blinking back tears. “I wasn’t the first. There were four before me. I was the only one to survive the process.”

  “This is remarkable,” Nathaniel said. Rosie and Maddox stood in silence, but their faces spoke volumes.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked Rosie.

  “Don’t you see?” she replied.

  “See what? It’s an incredible leap forward, imagine what they could do with this technology. The medical implications alone are staggering. Someone who had lost limbs or—” Nathaniel’s eye’s widened as the realisation struck him. “Dear God, it’s what he was after all along, isn’t it?”

  Rosie nodded. “It’s not your fault, Nathaniel.”

  He clutched his head in his hands. “Not my fault? It’s all my fault. It was the schematics for the armour he was after. Josiah means to rebuild himself as an ArcAngel. What have I done?”

  Gabriel pulled her lower body from the remaining rubble with ease but mentioned her batteries were at almost minimum power.

  Nathaniel shrugged. “I could give you a little more from my arc-lamp, but I’ve already half-drained the battery to get you up and running.”

  “Don’t do that,” she replied. “I’ll reroute some less critical systems and focus on mobility so we can get out of here.”

  “We should wait until daybreak,” Maddox said. “There’s no point trying to dig ourselves out of this hole just to be set upon by those beasts out there.”

  Nathaniel nodded. “I suppose that makes sense. I am feeling rather tired, let’s rest until the morning, then we’ll find a way back to the others.”

  Sleep was slow in coming, and transient when it finally arrived. Nathaniel woke several times during the night, aching and uncomfortable no matter how much he tried to cushion the floor with his coat.

  He gave up at six, clicking his pocket watch closed and began analysing the fallen debris, for a way to escape to the surface. Two hours passed in a flash as he assessed their options. Gabriel opened her eyes on the chime of eight and stood. The movement caused a scuffing sound, and soon, both Rosie and Maddox were stirring.

  “I think the rubble where we found Gabriel looks most promising,” he said. “If we can dislodge a few key stones, we might squeeze through a gap to the surface.”

  The others agreed, and they started the excavation.

  It turned out to be a far simpler task than he had expected. Gabriel could lift larger and heavier pieces than the rest of them and had much superior grip when trying to remove stubborn sections of the debris.

  With her faceplate closed, she shrugged off any falling masonry, which bounced harmlessly from her armour.

  A ray of sunlight broke through as a tumble of smaller stones parted revealing a route out. Nathaniel felt as he imagined Orpheus must have when escaping the underworld, but hoped for a much better outcome.

  They scrambled up the steep incline of rock, emerging in the ruins of a large building with only one remaining section of wall. From the size of the place, Nathaniel imagined it once to have been a public house or something similar. He surveyed the surrounding area for any signs of movement. Apart from the trickle of shifting rubble, all was silent.

  “
It looks clear,” he called to the others as they emerged. Like moles surfacing, they each squinted, shielding their eyes from the intense sunlight.

  “I’ll take a scout around,” Maddox said, drawing his pistol and disappearing behind the wall. He was quiet for a man his size.

  Gabriel insisted she go last, being the one most able to withstand any further collapse if it occurred. She emerged, surveying the scene of desolation. “Is it all like this now?” she asked, eyes boring into Nathaniel.

  “No, this is some of the worst around the area. Angel-One exploded when it crashed here.”

  “And the rest of the city?”

  “We’ll show you once we make a little distance south,” he replied, waving for both Gabriel and Rosie to follow as he picked his way through the remains.

  After ten minutes, Maddox rejoined them. “All looks clear if we’re headed back the same route we got here.”

  “Good,” Nathaniel said, then pointed to the southwest. “There’s the city.”

  Gabriel stood, staring at the vast black walls in the distance. “It’s a monstrosity.”

  “But it is necessary to keep the fog at bay,” Nathaniel replied.

  “Do you really believe that? What of those who live outside the wall?”

  “Well, they survive as best they can. They have fog-curtains fitted around doors and windows. That stops most of the ingress, but it’s not foolproof.”

  “So they succumb to the disease carried by the alien spores, and become these bleeders you mentioned? How uncivilised have we become?”

  Nathaniel turned to face her. “Well, essentially that’s what happens, though the taint passes through two preliminary stages first, wheezers, then bleeders. But, yes that’s the essence.”

  “And the politicians do nothing to improve the situation?”

  “No,” Rosie said. “All decisions come from the High Council now. They’re a group of over-privileged toffs and military, led by the Lord Commander of the Black Guard, Sir George bloody Frazer-Robertson.”