With eyes blazing and mouth open, Turbo zigzagged in a crazy-man’s rush around the corner. They heard him roar an insane oath, and then a thud and a rattle sounded. A second later, Turbo yelled, “It’s safe!”
Gingerly, they turned the corner and found Turbo with a short, stubby, shotgun-like weapon, the Electromag Grenade Launcher. It was a small mass-driver that used a magnetic impulse to propel grenades. The guard who’d shot it lay on the floor, gasping. There was a trail of blood leading up to him. It was like a smeared barcode, thicker in the places where he’d stopped to rest. The man had been crawling a ways to get this far.
“Someone must’ve gut-shot him,” said Turbo, his voice ominously flat.
The man’s face was pinched and his eyes were glassy. He had thinning white hair plastered to a sweaty skull and a colonel’s emblem on his shoulders.
Omi crouched before him. “Why’d you shoot at us?”
The colonel lay panting, his life ebbing away.
Marten marveled at the trail of blood: so thick and wet.
“What made him to crawl so far?” asked Stick.
“Wonder who shot him?” said Turbo.
“And why?” Stick added.
Marten crouched beside Omi as he dug the medkit out of his jacket. He pressed it to the colonel’s neck. For a moment, it did nothing. Then it beeped shrilly, as if it couldn’t figure out what to do.
“Override it,” suggested Stick.
Marten waited.
Turbo swore and bent down to do it. Omi grabbed his arm.
Marten thought about it. “No. Let him.”
Omi’s stiff face stiffened a little, but he let go of the lanky junkie. Turbo tapped in override and shot a batch of stims into the dying man. The colonel’s eyes flickered. He shuddered and drew an agonizing gasp.
Deep in thought concerning the colonel, Marten reclaimed the medkit.
The colonel groaned as he dragged his hand from his wound and examined his own blood.
“Can you tell us what happened?” asked Marten.
“Help me sit up,” whispered the colonel.
Marten found him surprisingly light as he propped the colonel against the wall. Blood soaked the colonel’s pants and half his shirt. Marten never knew so much blood could be in a man. A gaping wound in the colonel’s gut kept pumping out more.
“Bastards couldn’t even shoot me face to face,” the colonel wheezed. “Had to do it to me in the back.”
“Exploding bullet,” said Omi with professional detachment. “You should be dead.”
“I am,” the colonel said wearily.
“Who did it?” asked Marten.
“PHC.”
“Why?”
A great and final weariness seemed to settle on the colonel. Before their eyes, he aged into a brittle old man. The drugs gave him a final burst, but at a terrible cost.
“I thought you were them,” he said, “coming back.”
“Where’d they go?” Marten asked.
“Down.”
Marten frowned at the others. Then he told the colonel, “They’ve shot everyone.”
“Wretched villains, murderers, scum. They don’t want to leave anybody for the Highborn.”
“What do you mean?”
The colonel made a supreme effort to focus. With his bloody hand, he clutched Marten’s wrist. “Sydney’s lost, son. All Australian Sector is lost.”
“That’s no reason to go on a murder spree.”
“Don’t tell PHC that.” The dying colonel coughed blood. His pale skin turned sickly yellow.
“You said they headed down,” Marten prodded.
“To the deep-core station, the bottom one.”
“And?”
“And they’re gonna blow it.”
Marten was puzzled. “They’re going to destroy the mine?”
“No!” The old, old man wheezed air. He had maybe ten seconds left. “They’re gonna let it spew, geyser. They’re gonna use lava to destroy Sydney.” His eyelids fluttered and his head almost drooped for the last time. He kept it up with an iron will. “Use the heat flats to the flow canal. Elevator there goes to level forty. There’s an emergency drop to the deep-core station. Stop them. Stop them or everyone in Sydney’s dead.”
They glanced at each other for about three seconds, long enough for the colonel to die.
“We gotta get out of Sydney,” whispered Turbo.
“How are you gonna do that?” asked Stick.
Fear washed over Turbo. He began to tremble.
Omi rose, his face hardening.
Marten considered the colonel’s information, turned it over and thought about the implications. “We can’t go up, right?”
“Not with the Highborn coming down,” said Stick.
“We don’t know that,” said Turbo.
“If you don’t then you’re an idiot,” Stick told him.
“Or a junkie,” Omi added.
“Yeah, that too,” agreed Stick.
“Okay,” said Marten. “Then we have to down.”
“Meaning what?” asked Stick.
“I mean to stop them like the colonel said,” Marten told them.
Surprise and then comprehension filled the knifeboy. He seemed bemused rather than fearful. Turbo kept shaking his head.
“If we don’t stop them nobody will,” Marten said.
“You can’t know that,” Omi said.
“That’s right,” Marten said. “So we hide and cross our fingers and hope somebody else stops them. Is that it?”
“What else can we do?” Turbo whined.
“We can stop them,” said Marten.
“You’re crazy,” said Turbo.
“Crazy is better than waiting to die,” Marten countered.
“I don’t know,” Stick said. “It sounds like quick suicide to me.”
“It’s like this,” Marten said. “Either we do it ourselves or it’s not going to get done. Now we can sit tight and hope the State sends someone else to do the job. Only right now the State is dying and turning on itself and wants to die in a pyre of immolation.”
“What?” Turbo asked.
Marten stood, glancing at each of them. “You coming?”
The three slum dwellers wouldn’t meet his eyes. But as the moment stretched into silent discomfort, Omi finally shrugged.
“Yeah, why not, it’s as good a way as any to die.”
13.
Transcript of Directorate Interrogation of Secret Police General James Hawthorne #7
10.13.2349
Page 11
Q. General Hawthorne, I’m concerned about the wording of one of your statements yesterday. Hmm, let’s see…. ‘Civilian sacrifices cannot be too great for Highborn unit destruction of company or higher.’ Please elaborate on that statement.
A. Director?
Q. Please don’t be evasive, General.
A. I believe the wording is as accurate as I could state it.
Q. Do you? Do you indeed? Then let us see if we can narrow the definition. By ‘cannot be too great,’ does that mean up to and including a million people?
A. Most definitely.
Q. (pause) For a company of Highborn?
A. Yes.
Q. And a company is how large?
A. A Highborn drop troop company’s estimated strength would be approximately two hundred and fifty soldiers.
Q. You would willingly trade a million of our people for two hundred and fifty enemies?
A. A million civilians, Director.
Q. Civilians or soldiers, either way the comparison is incredible.
A. I disagree, Director. A million civilians are largely useless. Two hundred and fifty Highborn are deadly in the extreme.
Q. (coldly) I see. Then you would trade a city perhaps for a battalion of these heroes?
A. It would depend on the size of the city.
Q. Let us say a major city. One hundred million civilians?
A. I would hope for a division of the enemy in
such an exchange.
Q. (pause) I find your sanity questionable, General.
A. Sacrifices are never easy, Director. Two million super-soldiers are, however, not an endless supply. Nor do we even need to exchange on the levels you’re suggesting for all two million warriors. Once their casualties rise to a certain level, their defeat becomes inevitable. The trick is to make them take staggering losses as quickly as possible. Hence, what seems at first glance to be irrational exchanges quickly transfers into a logical strategy.
Q. I’m uncertain my colleagues or I agree with you, General.
A. The Dutch of the Sixteenth and Twentieth Centuries likewise faced such decisions. Much of their land had been reclaimed from the sea. When first the Spaniards and later the Germans tramped across the land in conquest, the Dutch broke their dykes and allowed the sea to swamp their hard-won farms. In each incidence, the flooding proved invaluable in military terms.
Q. We’re speaking of people, General, not land.
A. In a war, people and land are similar in this regard: they are ciphers that lead to victory or defeat. Not enough land often spells defeat. Too few people likewise can be devastating. To defeat the Highborn we must decrease their numbers to manageable levels. Out of a population well over forty billion, we can easily afford to lose three quarters of our people and come out ahead. Many cities will be destroyed in the coming conflict. Why not make their losses constructive to our eventual victory?
Q. (different Director) You have a particular strategy in mind?
A. Indeed.
Q. Elaborate.
A. I’m thinking of cities that use thermal power, the deep-core mines in particular. Studies have shown how to breach the safety features.
Q. (long pause) No one would survive a lava flow, General.
A. Correct.
Q. But…
Q. (different Director) The entire populace of Earth might well rise up in rebellion if it found out we that engineered core bursts.
A. Agreed. Thus, the Highborn will be blamed for such ‘savage’ attacks. It will help whip up war frenzy.
Q. Quite ingenious, General. But I must point out that the safety features of each deep-core mine are embedded in the deepest levels.
A. True.
Q. In other words, General, only someone willing to die could bypass the safety features. For each deep-core has such codes and preventive devices built into it. I believe these security measures are to prevent terrorist core bursts by remote control.
A. Your information is quite accurate, Director.
Q. Then I am at a loss. Who would do such a deed? Only madmen would, and you couldn’t trust a madman.
A. A madman, maybe, but I was thinking of PHC officers.
Q. They are the last people one thinks of as suicidal.
A. Correct. Hypnotic commands would have to be embedded deep within the chosen officer’s psyche.
Q. PHC Command is willing to do this to its operatives?
A. Directors, PHC is your tool. Willing or not, the deed must be done if you command it.
Q. You recommend this action?
A. Yes.
Q. When and how?
A. My recommendation is the soonest opportunity possible. After such a deed, and with blame laid on the Highborn, Earth will fight every battle with back-to-the-wall ferocity.
End of transcript Interrogation of Secret Police General James Hawthorne #7
14.
The exhausted quartet halted behind a flipped-over, bullet-riddled police cruiser. Several SU infantrymen lay dead within it. Squat, gray cylinders hummed all around them—Sydney’s power generators. The lift they’d tried to take to Level Forty had pinged an emergency warning and they’d been forced to exit at Level Thirty-eight. They were looking for a stairwell down. Up the street they heard the crump of mortars, the rat-tat-tat of machine-guns, explosions and screaming.
“I don’t wanna be no hero,” whined Turbo.
“What’cha you gonna do then?” asked Stick.
“Pop topside and run.”
“How many times I gotta tell you that you’d never get to the surface. The Highborn would blast you.”
“Right,” Turbo said. “I’ve been thinking about that. We could tell them about the deep-core as our ticket out.”
Stick jeered. “Sure! They’re gonna believe a junkie.”
“Why not? I ain’t no liar.”
“Yes you are,” Stick said. “And look where we’re at: in the middle of a battle. Soldiers shoot first and ask later.”
Turbo blew snot out his long icicle of a nose as he grumbled. His drugs had worn off a half-hour ago and Marten had refused to hand him the medkit for more.
Their eyes were hollow, and like Marten sweat shone on their faces and their chests heaved. Marten’s legs quivered as he leaned against a twisted piece of car framing.
“Look,” Omi said, pointing into the crumpled police cruiser. “There are guns in there.”
“Where?” asked Stick.
“In there with the soldiers.”
Stick looked into the wrecked vehicle, but made no move for the guns.
With a grunt, Marten rolled onto his belly and crawled into the pile of dead men. They stank of blood and guts and he avoided looking into their staring eyes. With their dead fingers, some of them held on to their weapons tightly, forcing him to pry and jerk to free them. He rummaged through torn armor, body parts and slags of metal. Soon he handed back short assault carbines and extra ammo clips. He even found a few grenades for Turbo’s Electro-launcher. He crawled out and wiped gore from his hands and checks. A small part warned him that it wasn’t good he was becoming used to such carnage.
“Hey, you’re not saying we join them up there?” Turbo said as he slapped the grenade clip into his launcher.
Marten peered over the wreckage. Omi rose and peered with him. He saw explosive flashes among the smoking rubble and half walls of former generators. Most of the sunlamps over there were broken shards in the ceiling, so it was eerily dark amid the red glares. Marten jerked his head, and in a crouch, he sprinted for a gray building closer to the firefight, one that still seemed intact. Omi sprinted after him. They threw their backs to the wall and slid toward a corner, peering around it.
Tracer rounds, plasma and lasers crisscrossed the darkened street in either direction. Orange plasma gobs gouged sections of wall, causing them to slide molten to the ground. Bullets chipped concrete. The bright lasers hurt their eyes.
Marten and Omi ducked back around the corner.
“That route’s blocked,” said the tough Korean.
“Perceptive. But did you notice the dead?”
Omi shook his head.
Marten found that he was shaking. Watching war videos was one thing, being near the real thing was infinitely more straining.
“Several of the dead were PHC,” Marten said.
“Red suits?”
Marten gave him a wan smile. Then he sprinted back for the overturned police cruiser. He soon lay panting behind it. Turbo and Stick chewed on protein bars, a pile of them at their feet. Marten noticed that some of the wrappers were bloody.
“You didn’t get them from in there?” Marten asked in outrage, jerking his thumb at the dead infantrymen.
Turbo shrugged.
Marten blanched. “That’s… that’s ghoulish.”
“You grabbed the guns,” Turbo said, his mouth full of chewed bar.
“I’m not eating my gun!”
“Relax,” said Stick. “It’s not like we’re cannibals.”
Marten dropped it. He inspected his assault carbine, figuring out how it worked.
Omi shook his shoulder. “The red-suits must have gotten caught before they made it to the emergency elevator. My guess is they’ve having a tough time ordering people out of their way.”
“You think the red-suits are in charge of Sydney?” asked Stick.
Omi jerked his thumb at the firefight. “The Highborn are deep in the city. Bet th
ey know, or guess at least, what the PHC are capable of.”
“So what?” said Stick. “What I wanna know is how to get around this battle and to deep-core.”
Marten cudgeled his mind, thinking back to his planning meetings in Construction of Level Sixty. There were three different types of levels, each conforming to a preplanned pattern. The ones with power generators like here on Level Thirty-eight were business levels, so…. He snapped his fingers. “There should be a maintenance shaft….” He glanced at the ceiling to get his bearings. “South,” he said, pointing away from the firefight.
“Down to Level Forty?” asked Omi.
Marten nodded.
Omi took off running the direction Marten had pointed. Stick and Turbo followed, getting away from the firefight as fast as possible.
Marten glanced at the leftover pile of bloody protein bars. He wrinkled his nose, shrugged and grabbed a fistful, shoving them into his pockets. Then he took off after the others.
15.
Conflicting emotions, fear predominating, warred within Major Orlov as she bulled through a terrified sea of civilians—they choked the streets with their masses and kept pouring out of the complexes. As loud and elemental as thunder, their combined shouts echoed off the ceiling and rolled from one building to the next. It created an emotional, supercharged atmosphere that drained everyone of reason. Individuals weren’t strong enough to resist such power, and a new entity had been born: the mob. Primeval, powerful, pregnant with horror, the mob paralyzed the lower sections of Sydney. The hordes within it surged like waves first one way and then another. Eddies, currents and treacherous riptides developed without apparent reason, which was deceptive. A rational mind couldn’t comprehend, but the grim thing that yet reeked of the primordial slime—the mob—understood perfectly.
The beings who had once been human—and who would be again if they survived this night—bore tightly strapped packs or clutched onto prized heirlooms. Their hysterical faces spoke more eloquently than words. Children were often torn from their parents’ grasp and became flotsam in the fleshy ocean. The major, as best she could, used her bulk and bearish strength to shove toward the Deep-Core Station. Behind her followed the picked men of her flying squad. The screaming crowds flinched from her killers. The crowds retained enough sense for that. Women and children cringed. Some men, however, dared to scowl behind their backs. Terrified, the major knew that one thrown bottle, or any hard object in fact, could send the mob howling upon them. She shoved more brutally. Mercy would only be seen as weakness, or even worse, as fear.
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