The Last Server

by H. J. Pang

  A distant boom resounded in the distance. Yells could be heard in the corridor outside. The Major looked torn trying to come to a decision, then turned back to the two of them.

  “Put on these uniforms,” he said. “You’re going to need them.”

  ONWARD AND FORWARD

  IT HAD BEEN a long time since Greg or Wesley had worn a military uniform. But there was something reassuring about the light fabric against the skin, the way it seemed to lend meaning to whatever they did. For a certain few, that was why they put it on day after day.

  The check-in area of the cell was deserted. If the situation had gotten worse since they arrived, the Old Guard was going to need all hands on deck, unmotivated or not. Greg couldn’t help but notice both the name tags on his and Wesley’s uniforms had the initials WONG KS, but he supposed the Major didn’t have time and resources to put together something different. Major Shang had ordered Greg and Wesley to carry crumbling cardboard boxes with packets of something, in a bid to make them look less suspicious. Nobody did more than glance at them, however, so Greg supposed it counted for something. They were in a section different from where they had been interrogated, and it was all Greg could do to not lose sight of the Major, as civilians and soldiers were continually running past and potentially cutting them off. He kept hearing a PA announcement throughout the halls, but it was too convoluted to make out. Probably an activation order of some sort.

  Major Shang unlocked the numerical lock of a door set into the side of a hallway, and entered. At first glance, it appeared to be a briefing room of some sort, with a table and chairs fronted by a large piece of cardboard with writing upon it. By the arrows and scribbles, Greg knew they were troop movement plans. Against the wall were a couple of red steel mesh cupboards, with the unmistakable shapes of guns and vests within it. Seated on the chairs were six other soldiers, including two Greg recognised—Captain Ping and Sergeant Ang sat near the head of the table. All of their equipment were either on the ground or placed at the side. No one saluted, so Greg assumed all unnecessary traditions had long since been dropped.

  “Put that shit down anywhere.” Major Shang gestured at the boxes. Greg and Wesley dropped them.

  “These are the ones Guo Li mentioned,” said Major Shang to those seated. Greg and Wesley nodded to them. “What I tell all of you gathered is highly classified, and not to be mentioned to anyone else. About a year ago, two of our scouts reported a convoy of vehicles travelling towards the direction of Marina Bay. Not the patrol units the 418 use for small-time raids, but covered lorries with an escort. By the time the news got back to the Colonel, they were nowhere to be found. We even did a full sweep of the area, but turned up nothing.”

  “How many vehicles were there?” asked Greg.

  “Ten, not counting their escorts. They even had a working Terrex with mounted MGs,” replied Major Shang, referring to the Singapore-made amoured fighting vehicles which allowed for weapons platforms including grenade and rocket launchers. “Then, our original concern was that they were establishing a staging point to mount attacks on us. Our location was supposed to be secret, but we have had scavengers and soldiers go missing from time to time. But when nothing happened for months, we closed the case.”

  “The convoy didn’t leave the area?” asked Greg.

  “No sign of it. With what you said, I’m guessing they brought in computer equipment and a crew to work on the server you were talking about, maybe even power tools. You don’t keep such a thing secure with plain wooden doors.”

  “But how do they resupply? They need food, water even.”

  “Tunnels. There’s a shitload of them beneath the city,” confirmed Captain Ping. “My patrol has been outside long enough to know that. Our best estimate is that over seventy percent of them are either collapsed or unexplored. Not to mention there are so many ways to hide an entrance. A slab of concrete, or even changing the locks to a door. Food and drink are easy to transport, but not high-level computer equipment. Chances are, all non-essential crew such as fighters are being rotated out this way. No one can stay in one place for too long without losing their mind.”

  “So what’s the plan?” demanded Greg. “You’ll excuse me for saying, but most of your men don’t seem to care if this dump goes to hell.”

  The men at the table glared at him.

  “Greg and his friend haven’t exactly seen the best side of our community,” said Ang carefully. “The guards on duty were, as you know, uncooperative as ever. It wasn’t always like this.”

  “Morale has been bad for a while now,” admitted Major Shang. “Few of the soldiers believe we would ever be attacked, not while we remain underground. But the types of food we can grow are limited, not just because of the lack of sunlight, but because there weren’t many fruit trees around here in the first place. The soil we use for growing crops is also getting worse by the day. Bu the Colonel refuses to allow any foraging operations outside of the immediate area, and so we remain. You see all these faces around you? These are the ones who will fight with us.”

  “Does the Colonel allow it?” asked Greg.

  “The Colonel will likely have the base on lockdown if any word of this gets out,” said Major Shang. “But I am the OC of the Old Guard Commando Unit, and I have the authority to lead a battle group. Captain Ping and 3SG Ang are from the Scout Unit, but they have agreed to help us.”

  Greg nodded. Ang seemed like an okay guy. Captain Ping was, well, as careful as any responsible officer should be. “Do we have any intel on what to expect?” he asked. Already the experience he had in military exercises was kicking in. As a Military Expert in the SAF—a soldier with the vocation of engineer—ranked ME4, an officer rank equal to Captain, he sometimes had to take charge of company-level operations.

  “Enemies are arriving by the truckload around the Gardens, and there appears to be mortar emplacements to the east,” Major Shang turned the cardboard on the wall over, displaying a photocopy of the map of the area around them.

  He picked up a stick of charcoal, marking a cross on an area on the right. “This is Gardens by the Bay. The facility you mentioned has got to be some ways underground, otherwise it would have been destroyed during The Storm. Mortar emplacements seem to be concentrated on the side of the river just across the Helix Bridge. For some reason, much of the bridge itself is still standing, so we should be able to make our way across it. Do any of you know where exactly the server is?”

  “It gets power and cooling from the old dam system of Marina Barrage, with supplementary power absorbed from sunlight by the Supertrees,” confirmed Wesley. “We don’t have an exact location, but according to the architectural plans, it can be accessed by means of an entrance either at Marina Barrage itself, or The Shoppes at Marina Bay. There are no other known entrances.”

  “Fuck.” Major Shang flung the charcoal stick onto the table. The other soldiers looked on in silence.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Greg nervously.

  “Marina Barrage is going to be crowded with 418, if our intel is anything to go by,” grunted Major Shang. “Even if all our men were to be activated, we’ll never be able to reach it without heavy losses. I’m sorry, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.”

  “Then we’ll enter by The Shoppes,” said Greg. He really didn’t see what the problem was.

  “It’s home to an unknown number of Mindless.”

  Damn. Greg clenched his jaw, looking to Wesley. He didn’t look confident at all. After that incident in the MRT tunnels, Greg wished never to encounter those things again. It wasn’t just that they could rend you from limb to limb in an instant, there was something unsettling about their howls and snarls, sounds that came only from one’s deepest nightmares. Tangling with one was the closest one could come to encountering monsters.

  “What equipment do we have available?” asked Greg. Major Shang looked back in annoyance.

  “Are you bloody kidding me? There’s no way eight of my men are going through
that! Do you know just how many of them there are? Hundreds! Maybe even well over a thousand!”

  Several times a year, some IT show or other would be held at one of three locations throughout the nation: Singapore Expo, Suntec City’s Convention and Exhibition Centre or Sands Expo and Convention Centre. These shows always attracted crowds of people. On opening days, when selected electronics could cost a fraction of their actual price, people would queue up overnight, so that queues snaked around the building.

  Lots of people queuing out in the open, exposed to unhealthy bursts of cosmic radiation. Lots of Mindless created.

  But Greg’s son was there, deep in the bowels of the server facility, being subjected to who knows what. He couldn’t turn back.

  “Major, do you know the fate Guo Li narrowly escaped?” demanded Greg. Major Shang said nothing. “The 418 were about to install electronics into his head, and hook him up to a server system. Not to transfer data, but decrypt security protocols. Right now, this is happening to my son. Do you want to be an accessory to the 418’s cruelty? Do you want to live on as the guy who sat by doing nothing, while defenceless kids had their brains fried? The choice is yours, Major.”

  Major Shang banged the table with two fists, and for a moment, Greg wondered if he had gone too far.

  “Do you think we would knowingly let innocent kids die?” yelled the Major. “We of the Old Guard know what the 418 are capable of! We know of their Blood Arenas and slaves, of their penchant for violence and evil! But we are also the protectors of two thousand civilians, many of them women and children! You come here all high and mighty, full of righteousness and shit, telling us what we should or should not do! Well, the lives of a few cannot justify the lives of many. That’s just the way it is.”

  “The 418 will not stop after getting the server’s data,” spoke Wesley. His tone, so different from Greg’s, drew everyone’s attention. “You think the shelling is bad? History has shown that power corrupts. They will use that knowledge to destroy your city, to flush you out like rats in a storm. They will enslave everyone who isn’t killed, and put them to building new facilities and weapons they will learn about from the server. With those weapons, they will destroy whatever’s left of your survivors. Hide like rats if you will, but the day will come when you can hide no longer.”

  That was by far the most eloquent speech Wesley had delivered. “If you won’t come with us, that’s understandable,” said Greg. “We only ask that you return us our gear, and we’ll be on our way. If it wasn’t for our little tour through your city, that’s how it should have been.”

  The room was quiet. Captain Ping broke the silence.

  “When I first signed up, I did it to protect the innocent,” said Captain Ping. “To defend the weak against the might of the strong. Then, it was threats to national security. But what is the point of loyalty to country if you don’t even help a stranger in need? Greg and Wesley here saved our asses from the 418, with no idea if they were going to be taken to our base. In retrospect, a few of my men and I owe them our lives.”

  “As do I,” said Sergeant Ang.

  “With your leave, Major, I will show our guests where they may retrieve their gear.” Captain Ping stood up. “Let’s go, Ang.”

  “Not so fast,” said Major Shang. Everyone, including the Captain and Sergeant, froze.

  “Take two of our SAW retrofits with you,” said the Major. “You’ll need it to fight the Mindless. Those scum are as numerous as flies.”

  TO DANGER DEEP

  GREG HAD ORIGINALLY worried that the ragtag excuse of an army didn’t have much in the way of advanced weaponry. The usefulness of whatever weapons they had would be limited by modifications, such as electronic sights. But it seemed that there were some surprises in store for him.

  The Ultimax 100 was one of the lightest SAWs on the planet, and in fact came close to being an assault rifle. The Singapore-made Squad Automatic Weapon proved that even a petite-sized person could fire an entire mag of ammunition single-handedly for sustained periods, owing to its highly manageable recoil. What the Old Guard Commandos had were new Gen 4 models, complete with Picatinny rails and a full optics package. Working electronics were a rarity, even more so were holographic sights and laser aiming devices that could actually be turned on. There was even a 40mm 3GL attached to the bottom rail. This was a grenade launcher capable of holding three 40mm rounds, which would be more than a little useful when handling tight groups. Much to the bafflement of the others, Wesley had opted for his AV-2 with GoPro mounting, so Ang got the other Ultimax. Together with the soldiers, Greg and Wesley donned LBVs with both soft and hard ballistic armour plates, along with helmets made ten years ago. All these would fetch a fortune, if anyone ever offered it for sale in the wasteland. It would do little against the animalistic attacks of the Mindless, but would help immensely when facing the 418 defenders.

  Major Shang checked everyone’s gear one final time, and led them through a side corridor. He and his team had agreed to accompany them as far as half of the way to The Shoppes, and were similarly geared. They had to keep their heads down, as patrols roamed the halls regularly, but Greg doubted anyone remembered they existed. The tension in the air was palpable, thick as a fog. Lights had been dimmed, and Major Shang explained this was to reduce light leakages through the rubble from pinpointing their position. They went past a checkpoint with guards marginally more attentive than the previous ones, and were soon in the tunnels. Up they went through a locked maintenance hatch, and to Greg’s surprise, he felt the breeze of fresh air. Well, as fresh as dusty city air could be. They were in the middle of a courtyard, enclosed by a half-circle collection of ruins. They were in the grounds of what was the Esplanade building and Greg could just make out what used to be bars and eateries. Scavengers had probably already been through them, if the owners hadn’t already taken the contents with them. Alcohol cost a lot before The Storm, and would be worth far more after it happened.

  “To the east of here is the old Floating Platform,” whispered Major Shang. “We’ll do a sweep around the immediate area, then get to the top of the seating area. From there, we can do a reconnaissance of what lies ahead.” He patted the binoculars around his neck.

  “Good plan. Will there be any 418 patrols about?” Greg looked about. “It seems quiet, for now.”

  “The 418 weren’t shelling the area randomly. We believe they have spotters who relayed the location of our patrols back to the mortar troopers.” Major Shang looked around. “Now that most of our topside troops are now at base awaiting further orders, the shelling seems to have stopped. I don’t think they’ll be coming to clear us out anytime soon.

  “That said, we have to tread carefully,” the Major warned. “We don’t have any thermal sighting devices left, but the 418 might. Dash when you are out in open spaces, and always keep behind cover. Understood?”

  “Yes, Sir!” everyone breathed. “Follow my lead! Go go go!”

  Major Shang dashed forward, and everyone followed after, split into two teams. Greg, Wesley, Ping and Ang had the call sign Hunter 1 to 4, while the others were Avenger 1 to 4. A mix of boots and sneakers rustled across the ground, sounding loud in the otherwise quiet night. They were on the move, and Greg couldn’t help but feel the thrill of the hunt.

  For too long, he had been in hiding, then oppressed by the 418, powerless to stop them. He had thought that escaping gave them less power over him, but in truth, he was simply escaping again, if only to find his son. The 418 had then seemed too powerful to fight against. But now he was out on the road, armed with the best equipment anyone could have, backed by several of the best fighters in the wasteland. It just felt great to be able to make a difference.

  Hawkeye Zhen was always trying to make a difference. The life of 418 members had improved each time he found a cache of resources scavengers had overlooked. His superiors had attributed it to his keen sight and perceptiveness. He personally accorded it to his being thorough. Because of his inherent abil
ity as a scout, the Red Pole of Operations had appointed him a Hawkeye. This meant more food for his family, and even a sizable space in the Brotherhood apartments.

  During peacetime, Hawkeyes had one main job, to watch over an area of the city, bolt-action sniper rifle in hand. Any scavenger not bearing the 418 colours or tattoos was to be shot, with their location reported. The resources of the city were limited, and it wouldn’t do any good to let pariahs have them.

  When the Dragon Head himself declared war on the Old City, Hawkeyes now had a new role: calling in enemy troop movements to the boys handling the mortars. Where mortars couldn’t reach, nearby patrols would deal with. A bolt-action sniper rifle was lethal against single targets, but against groups, it only served to draw danger towards oneself. Before The Storm, he had never ridden in the Singapore Flyer. He now got his wish, perched within one of the highest cabins, giving him a clear line of sight over much of the city. He recognised the sinking mass of the Floating Platform, where countless recruits who had completed Basic Military Training, including him, were force-marched to in a bid to remind them of their obligations. Well, he served a greater power now.

  This was Zhen’s third shift in a row. The Dragon Head had ordered that no rest was to be taken until the operation was complete. Loyalty was important, but it did little to ease the ache behind his eyes. Several times he dozed off, only to awaken in shock, aware that he could have been caught sleeping on duty. Unlike other 418 sub-units, Hawkeyes had no love for each other. Being a rare breed, they saw each other as competitors, and were more than willing to report laziness to their superior. Even up high as he was, all it would take was a good scope and a big mouth to get him in trouble.

  Movement down below. Zhen blinked, wondering if it was a couple of overgrown trees shaking. This far into the city, no one dared to come merely to cut them down for wood.