Fogbound- Empire in Flames

by Gareth Clegg

  “Victoria is dead, you fool. Destroyed by the Martians years ago.”

  “No, she lives on through her granddaughter, who is alive and well. She does not wish to relinquish her estates to you or anyone else, including the Black Guard.”

  “And how have you come to this deluded ideal?”

  “Because I spoke with her just five minutes before I came out to meet you.”

  Murmurs spread among the assembled gang members until Josiah reasserted his position. “If you are unwilling to give up the prize, then I’ll take it from you, as the strong have always taken from the weak.”

  “I will die before relinquishing my duty,” Gabriel said, planting her feet.

  “Make your peace with your God then. You’re about to fall from Heaven once again.”

  Josiah’s guns spun into motion belching gouts of electricity spraying over the heads of the crowd. Panicked screams filled the area as gang members dived for cover from his indiscriminate attack. Scorched remains marked the spot of those too slow off the mark. As the line of fire reached its intended target, it found only empty space.

  The roar of Gabriel’s power-assisted leap resounded throughout the station. She hovered in the air as a mighty pair of silver wings sprung from her armour. Electricity rippled over her suit, and she flung one hand out towards Josiah. A flight of six sword-like feathers arced into him, striking with a thunderclap and a shriek of tearing metal. The gun on Josiah’s right arm shredded, shrapnel exploding in all directions. Fragments ricocheted off his armoured torso cutting down swathes of the fleeing gangs as he stumbled back, bracing himself.

  Callam’s team had achieved great things with the ArcAngel armour. Nathaniel had focused on fitting the new wing unit while working on the amazing technology.

  Josiah roared in anger, shaking the molten remains of metal fragments from the arm as he tried to sweep the other weapon into Gabriel’s path. The firepower he brought to bear was immense. Rounds pounded into the station with dents and holes the size of a man’s head, but Gabriel was a seasoned veteran. Her armour was part of her, a second skin, and she’d lived and trained in it for years. It showed in her agility and with her precision.

  Dodging the hail of fire from the other cannon, she unleashed another volley of the charged feathers. They curved through the air to find their target. This time, the Gatling gun didn’t explode, but fell to the ground split into several pieces.

  Josiah kicked the useless remains which careened off the platform edge striking gang members who were hiding there. All that remained were smears of crimson gore across the platform’s surface.

  Amid the carnage and chaos of people escaping into the tunnel, Nathaniel noticed a skulking figure. Dark clothing wrapped around its form as it maintained a stealthy profile at the edge of the gates. Nathaniel’s heart almost stopped as a curl of bright red hair slipped from beneath the hood.

  Isaac leaned on the tiller and watched London burn. Thick black clouds rose from behind the walls, who knew what the hell was going on? It seemed the city had abandoned any semblance of law or order when the gangs entered. Their plan was nothing more than chaos and destruction on a grand scale.

  Gunshots echoed within, and Isaac counted himself lucky to be floating along the Thames. Betsy’s engine was smooth, and they left a small wake as she cut through the gentle waves of the outgoing tide pushing against them. “How’s he looking?”

  Annie poked her head out of the canvas and crossed to the tiller with two steaming metal mugs. “Sleeping. Perhaps that’s for the best, looks like a few broken ribs and lots of bruising coming through. He’s taken a right kicking, but he’ll survive.”

  “Good.”

  “Is that it?”

  “What else do you want me to say?”

  “So you’re still a man of few words?”

  Isaac smiled. “Yeah.”

  Annie passed him the tea. Dark with the merest hint of milk and plenty of sugar, just the way he liked it. Isaac worried where the milk came from though. It was some time since he’d seen cows. With the black market, it was better not to ask, but thoughts always lingered on the edge of his subconscious. Images of giant-rat farms. Could you even milk a rat? He shook his head, chuckling. Or what if it was human? No, that was plain disgusting. He screwed his face up at the thought.

  “Everything all right?” Annie asked. “Not having a seizure, are you?”

  “That’s the problem with the youth of today, isn’t it?”

  “What’s that?”

  “No bloody respect.”

  “That’s not true,” Annie said. “I respect many things—strength, cunning, intellect and beauty.”

  “What about tradition or your elders?”

  “Well, I respect you, don’t I?”

  “Do you?”

  “Course I do. But not only cos you’re my old man. I value what you taught me when I was little. How to fight and shoot, how to look after myself.”

  “Life’s more than just fighting, girl.”

  “But you were one of the best.”

  Isaac shook his head. “That was a long time ago. As you get older, it changes. Things what didn’t seem of any use when you was young become more important. Others you thought you wanted more than anything else in the world lose their charm.”

  Annie looked at him, a quizzical expression on her face. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Shit just changes, and you got to be ready to change with it. If you can’t adapt, then you either get left behind or one day find you aren’t no use no more. I wish your mother could have seen you like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “All grown up. Look at you, Queen of the Forty Thieves and leader of the Elephant and Castle at twenty-four. She’d have been proper proud, she would.”

  “I’m twenty-five.”

  “What?”

  “You heard.”

  “When did you get another year older?”

  “Well, it happens every year,” Annie said with a grin. “You must be going senile.”

  A sigh escaped Isaac’s lips. “There you go again, no bloody respect.”

  The battle raged between the two behemoths into the tunnel system just outside the station. Gabriel’s aerial advantage ended with a sputtering from her power circuits as the wing unit failed. Nathaniel cursed the lack of time they had in completing and testing the refit.

  Now they fought on the ground, trading punches and kicks. The pinnacle of technological warfare reduced to a common street brawl.

  Gabriel was still quicker, her reaction speed was incredible, but all it would take was one direct hit from Josiah, and that might finish the battle in an instant.

  As Nathaniel watched everything playing out on the viewscreen, Raphael’s voice crackled back into activity.

  “You must help her.”

  “Rosie?” Nathaniel said, looking up. “I mean, who?”

  “My analysis shows Gabriel cannot win this fight alone.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Look at her power levels,” Raphael said, pointing to another screen. It depicted a schematic of the ArcAngel suit and a battery draining rapidly.

  “How is it so low already?” Nathaniel asked.

  “She can’t afford a direct hit from his attacks, so she’s overclocking her systems, to stay ahead of him.”

  “How long does she have?”

  “At the current rate of consumption, a matter of minutes.”

  “But what could we do? We’ve not got anything that will stand against that monstrosity?”

  “I fear we can do nothing. But Gabriel could.”

  “How? You said yourself she’s running out of… time.”

  Raphael’s neck plates squealing as he rotated his head to face him. “Precisely. She needs more time.”

  Nathaniel’s eyes widened. “Her watch?”

  “Give her that, and everything changes. She could freeze Josiah in place and disable or destroy him.”

&
nbsp; “But, we’ve been over this. The power unit is dead, and we have none of the alien technology. It’s hopeless.”

  “There’s always hope, Nathaniel.” A click from Raphael’s torso exposed the edge of a panel in his upper chest. His right arm reached across and flicked it open, revealing a recessed mechanical heart. A mass of cables sprouted from it and connected into the armour, while a red glow pulsed from behind the device in the grim parody of a heartbeat.

  “Is that?”

  Raphael nodded. “A Martian fusion cell. The same one you will use to power Gabriel’s watch.”

  “But won’t you die?”

  “Yes, but that has been my intention for some time.” He held Nathaniel’s gaze with newfound resolution. “This is my fault. I’ve carried this disease since I returned here after escaping from the Martians. But I realise now they planned it all, and my escape was but a catalyst for their ultimate ambition: to destroy ArcNet when it suited them.”

  “But that means—”

  “Yes, there may still be remnants of the alien intelligence in league with powers within the city. We have little time. The longer we discuss this, the weaker Gabriel is becoming. Her power will run out unless we do this now.”

  Nathaniel hung his head realising Raphael was right. Gabriel was taking more glancing blows in her fight against Josiah. She was slowing, and it wouldn’t be long before they became solid strikes, disabling or even destroying her.

  He turned back, nodding. “What do I need to do?”

  Raphael explained the process as he set up the commands to route power to capacitors in the emergency door controls. As soon as he went offline, the overrides he maintained would drop. The doors would revert to their normal state—closed, powered by the reserves in the capacitor. The flood system was on an isolated circuit which they could link to once they had sealed the security gates. But it would require manual intervention at the gate control.

  Nathaniel opened a panel on the main console and triggered the emergency evacuation. Red lighting flickered then pulsed to match the wail of a klaxon. A wax message drum rotated dragging a stylus across the grooves in its shiny surface. Speakers throughout the complex burst into life repeating the monotone warning. “Emergency evacuation. Proceed at once to the central core. This is not a drill.”

  “Are you ready?” Raphael asked.

  Nathaniel shook his head, eyes wide as he paced. “I can’t do this. There has to be another way?”

  “There isn’t, not with the time we have left. You must get the watch to Gabriel.”

  Nathaniel swallowed past the knot in his throat and nodded.

  Raphael smiled at him. “It’s the only option to save you all. I cannot do this myself. You need to give me the authorisation.”

  Raphael gripped the heart-like mechanism that pulsed within him and Nathaniel clasped his hand over it as he issued the command sequence he’d been given. “Alpha-Omega-Sigma-Epsilon-Epsilon.” He felt Raphael’s fingers constrict under his palm. “Goodbye, Raph.”

  “Goodbye, Nathaniel, and thank you.”

  Raphael’s arm yanked away from his chest with a series of pops as cables and power lines ripped free. Sparks flew, and his eyes glowed an intense blue for an instant, then faded to eternal black.

  The heart pulsed, the last living remnant of what had been an ArcAngel. The metal fingers slackened, leaving the red pulsing device in Nathaniel’s grip. He reached up, wiping the stream of tears from his cheeks.

  “I’m sorry, Raphael,” Nathaniel said, his voice catching. “I should have been able to find another way, a better way.”

  He took a deep breath and turned to his next task—powering the watch.

  42

  Nathaniel rushed through the dim metallic corridors. The pulsing red lighting reminded him of the alien artefact, which now powered Gabriel’s timepiece. He heard footsteps running towards the core and wondered for a second why he was headed the opposite way.

  The clang of boots on the metal plates ahead snapped him from his thoughts. He stopped in his tracks, realising he had no weapon. What if this was one of Josiah’s men, or worse, the Black Guard? He reached for his trusty arc-lamp as Fletcher came barrelling around the corner. She yelled in surprise, almost crashing into him. “Shit, Bazalgette. What you doing? The core’s that way.” She pointed back where he’d come from.

  “I’m going to the platform.”

  “Are you fucking barmy? We need to evacuate.”

  “No, I have to get the watch to Gabriel before the gate seals.” He pushed past while she mumbled something behind him.

  “Fuck it. Wait up. I’m no letting you do this on your lonesome.”

  They stepped out onto the dark platform, the grinding of gears was deafening as the security gates edged closer together. The gap between the two colossal steel structures was shrinking at a rapid rate, and Nathaniel lit the arc-lamp as he dashed to cover the distance. Beyond the gate, the battle of the titans raged. Resounding clangs and the shriek of metal straining and tearing pierced the void ahead.

  A gunshot rang out from down the tunnel sparking off the rightmost wall. A figure moved in the darkness, hunkering into a recess against the wall. Nathaniel instantly recognised Rosie and stopped, staring at her in disbelief.

  “Get down, you bampot.”

  Another shot whistled past, and he collapsed as Fletcher tackled him, the breath bursting from his lungs as he hit the ground.

  “Nathaniel,” cried Rosie.

  He tried to reply, but only managed a gurgling noise. His chest felt like a horse had sat on him.

  “He’s all right, lass,” Fletcher called back, “just a bit winded.”

  Fletcher dropped into a prone position, rifle extended ahead of her, waiting. “There you are, you wee bastard,” she said.

  Nathaniel heard the almost inaudible hum and then a sound as if she’d spat on the floor. “That’ll teach you.”

  He pushed himself to his feet and noticed the clanking of the gates. They were almost closed. “Rosie, get in here now.”

  She wouldn’t make it. The gates were closing too fast. He reached into his waistcoat for the watch, his decision made, but it wasn’t there. Frantic, he checked the other pocket - nothing. He glanced about and there, where he’d fallen, a curved glint of silver caught the light from his arc-lamp. Nathaniel dived for it ignoring the pain as his elbow and knees found the concrete and steel where the tracks entered the station. His fingers pressed down on the latch release, the case flipping open in his hand. He continued the pressure pushing the crown into the body as detailed on the schematic.

  He turned, taking in the strange scene. Fletcher still lay on the floor having discharged her rifle. A two-foot-long wake of dust hung suspended in the air where the passage of the bullet had disturbed it. The arc-lamp highlighted swirling motes all around, reminding him of walking through thick fog. It was beautiful but strangely haunting. A moment frozen in time captured solely for him.

  He shook his head, focusing on his immediate task. As he arrived at the gate, his heart sank. He’d been too slow. Less than six inches remained between the vice-like slabs of black steel. He could barely thrust his arm through, let alone pull Rosie back to safety.

  He pushed the arc-lamp between the jaws of the metal beast separating them. The tunnel lit up. She stood in the alcove, dust clinging to her dark clothing, while her hood hung loosely about her shoulders, a bright red spray of hair cascading around her pale features. She must have been turning back towards the gates as the watch activated. The tail of her leather trench coat brushed the ground, sending eddies of particles swirling out from it to hang like raging sandstorms. She was beautiful, only ten feet away, but entirely out of reach.

  “Rosie?”

  His words echoed in the silent, frozen photograph. Nathaniel pulled his arm back. It felt wrong leaving her in the darkness with just the shafts of light from the hole in the ceiling for company.

  He rushed to the wall panel beside the gate and tor
e it free. It still had power, the capacitors were doing their job, but they looked close to empty.

  Can I reverse the closure, use the last precious joules to open the gates enough to drag Rosie through? How much time do I have?

  The second hand swept backwards from eight minutes past midnight, so it was a reasonable estimate to say it gave him ten minutes from activation. What can I do in eight minutes?

  Nathaniel sat with his head in his hands. It was useless. He’d tried everything he could think of.

  This was the sixth reset, and he was no closer to a way of solving the problem. Towards the end of his first ten minutes, he realised he couldn’t allow the gates to seal, that would make it impossible. So, instead, he’d waited for the last few seconds before reactivating the watch. It had worked, resetting to ten past twelve and the second hand began its crawl back toward midnight. He seemed to have all the time in the world, but it made no difference.

  An attempt to reverse the door closure led to nothing, other than draining the capacitors faster. Reset.

  He routed additional power to the mechanism which resulted in sparks and blown fuses from other overburdened systems. Reset.

  He’d scavenged energy packs and linked them in series to top up the primary capacitor. But they’d fused and melted as they overloaded. Now he had an odd sculpture of warped angular metal sticking out of the control panel at strange angles. Reset.

  Crowbars and any other form of leverage had been a complete waste of effort, but by that point he was desperate. Reset. Reset. Reset.

  He had no idea how many more chances to restart the watch he had. Now he was out of ideas. He’d failed, and it was torture listening to the tick, tick, tick of the second hand wasting what little time remained.

  “I’m so sorry, Rosie,” he said, reaching between the gates, unable even to take her hand in his.

  He must have missed something. There had to be a way, but how? Maybe he should admit defeat, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He pushed the crown into the case again to reset another ten minutes. Tick, tick, tick. The countdown continued. Five seconds, four. He pressed again. Three, two, one.