Mutant Rising

by Steve Feasey

  Rush looked over at the armoured troop carrier, a sly grin slowly forming on his face.

  ‘The cities have no trouble supplying each other.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘If Melk wants to label us as guerrillas, I say that’s how we start acting. We’ll steal everything we need. They ferry supplies between the Cities in those large transporters. How difficult could it be to liberate some of that stuff?’

  ‘That could be dangerous.’

  The youngster gave the older man a bemused look. ‘Haven’t you worked it out yet, Silas? Everything we do is dangerous now.’

  Dead City

  Tia crested the hill and pressed her foot on the brake to bring the troop carrier to a halt. Although she had seen the place already, the shock of what lay before her was no less than it had been that first time. Silas, sitting in the passenger seat by her side, seemed to be having the same thoughts. She glanced in the wing mirror at the transporter behind them, waiting for it to catch up. When the two vehicles were side by side, everybody got out and stood on the ridge staring down on the vast, open mausoleum.

  ‘Behold. Man’s inhumanity to man,’ Silas said in a low voice.

  ‘Wow,’ Rush said, knowing the exclamation sounded lame and inadequate as soon as it had left his lips. He glanced over at Brick, who had made a low groaning noise at about the same time.

  A bridge, or a flyover of some kind, had once linked the place down there with the hill where they stood. That, like everything else associated with this place – the tower blocks, the shops, the houses and whatever else had once stood down there – was long gone. The fact that the scene greeting their eyes had once been a city, a city teeming with people, a city perhaps not unlike the six that the Pure inhabited on this rebooted version of Earth, was not obvious at first glance. Now it looked as if an enraged god had smitten the place, transforming everything into broken stone, corroded metal and ash – a cracked and broken place. Burnt-out shells (Rush guessed they must once have been vehicles of some kind) were everywhere, thousands of them, not an inch of space between them; most of them were covered in the same debris and rubble as everything else.

  Grey.

  The place hadn’t always been so; once it must have been a multitude of colours and lights, but not any longer. Now everything was grey and lifeless.

  Tink had not accompanied them. He’d told them that he had ‘business to attend to’ way off to the south and would go there on his own, refusing both their pleas for him to stay and their offers to go with him. Rush had noticed the odd look in the older man’s eyes when he’d told them of his plans the evening before his departure, and a little later, when they were alone, he’d asked his friend if the business had anything to do with one of Tink’s ‘visions’. ‘Maybe,’ was the foreseer’s enigmatic response. ‘But I hope to hell I’m wrong on this one.’

  Rush had been sad to see Tink leave, but knew it was the older man’s way. Whatever it was he was up to, he hoped he was safe.

  ‘There’s a path of sorts over there,’ Tia said, gesturing to their right. ‘It’s the only way down from here.’

  ‘I’ll fly,’ Anya said. There was none of the spiky attitude she’d exhibited so much recently. Instead she, like the rest of them, seemed aghast at the scene before them.

  ‘Brick stay here,’ the big guy said.

  ‘You can’t,’ Rush said, putting a reassuring hand on the hulk’s ham-like forearm. ‘This is going to be our new home.’

  ‘No,’ Brick said, shaking his head. ‘Dead things down there.’

  ‘Well, yes, I guess there are. But they can’t hurt you if they’re dead, can they?’

  ‘Dead things and the dark. Brick get frightened.’

  ‘Not this again!’ Anya blurted out. ‘Have a look at yourself, Brick. Just for one second. Look at the size of you! Afraid of the dark? Don’t be such a dummy.’

  ‘Don’t call him that,’ Rush responded angrily. ‘He’s not a dummy. He’s –’

  ‘Ridiculous!’

  ‘What is your problem, Anya?’ Rush took a step towards her, suddenly angry on his friend’s behalf. ‘For weeks now you’ve been a pain in everyone’s arse. Sulking all the time. Snapping at the least thing anyone says. OK, so Brick doesn’t like the dark. So what? You’ve no right to call him names, so don’t.’

  ‘Or what?’ She showed no sign of backing down. ‘What are you going to do, hmm?’

  Silas stepped between them, holding his arms out to separate them as best as he could. ‘I hardly think this is helping. Squabbling and fighting among ourselves. What is that going to achieve?’ He turned to Brick. ‘There are lights where we’re going, I promise you that. Besides, you have your torch, don’t you?’ The older man looked over at Rush and gestured in Brick’s direction. ‘He’ll need your help.’

  Rush watched as the huge man-child fished inside his pocket for the dynamo-powered device he’d given to him all that time ago when they’d first met. It made him smile to watch the big man’s shovel hands, topped with the fattest fingers imaginable, deftly spin the tiny handle on the side of the thing, whirling it around with perfect dexterity before flicking the switch at the side. Brick hated to be without the thing, and Rush guessed it was a security blanket of sorts. Something the big guy relied upon whenever the night demons that haunted him threatened.

  ‘We’ll just go and see what it’s like, eh?’ Rush gave Brick a nudge with his shoulder. ‘If you don’t like it, you and I can sleep in the transporter tonight, and we’ll work something out tomorrow.’

  Brick seemed to relax a little. ‘Rush shouldn’t shout at Anya.’

  ‘Well, Anya shouldn’t be so mean to people. What do you say? Will you give it a go?’

  ‘Down there?’ Brick still looked miserable at the prospect.

  ‘Everything’ll be fine.’

  ‘Rush promise?’

  ‘I promise.’

  Rush was filled with a strange feeling of dread as they made their way through the devastation that they were proposing to make their home. Brick was right; there were dead things – more than any of them could count. Corpses stared out at them from everywhere. Some of those trapped within the cars were surprisingly well preserved, as he found out when he wiped a thick crud of grey ash from a windscreen and looked inside. Sunken-eyed, with mummified lips drawn back over ghastly toothy grins, they stared back out at him. Others were little more than skeletons, but these too seemed to track the group’s progress through the derelict streets, as if to ask who the newcomers were and what right they had in coming here. He hated it here, but he put on a brave face for Brick, who walked along with his head down, humming tunelessly in a voice that threatened to crack at any moment.

  Nobody spoke. That it had been rush hour when the attack occurred was obvious from the sheer number of bones and skulls littered on the ground. Either that, or everyone in this place had come out on to the streets to die together.

  ‘This is it,’ Silas said, coming to a halt before what appeared to be a large rectangular opening in the ground. From the look of the earth around it, he, Tink and Tia had already cleared a large amount of the rubble and wreckage to open it up properly.

  ‘Down there?’ Jax said, looking dubiously down the steps that led under the cracked and broken concrete of the streets. Although he didn’t know it, the albino was standing on what had once been the pavement of the busiest junction in this former city. At that time – before humankind had unleashed the ultimate storm of death – great glass and concrete structures had loomed over this spot on all sides: a giant commercial Mecca that drew consumers from all over the world.

  ‘There’s almost as much of the city below the ground as there is above it,’ Silas told them. ‘Down there are miles of tunnels that interconnect and criss-cross everything you see up here. There were underground trains, powered by electricity, to transport vast numbers of people around the city. The main benefits are that we’ll be out of sight and sheltered from the
weather. The temperature down there is fairly constant all year round. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s warm, but it is better than being exposed to the elements.’

  ‘Brick’ll freak out.’ Rush said. They’d left the big guy a little way back, and the younger mutant glanced across to make sure his friend wouldn’t overhear him.

  ‘No, he won’t.’ Silas gave him a strange look. ‘Tia and I didn’t just clear this entrance. Like I said, we were busy. Just keep him occupied up here for a few moments, and I’ll go down and make it possible for him to join us.’

  Once they’d powered them up, the fumes from the generators filled the place with an acrid stench, but the lights rigged up to them cast their harsh illumination across the vast open space at the bottom of the steps. It was only once this was done that Rush and Brick were summoned. They stared around in wonder.

  It must once have been a ticketing hall, no doubt for the trains: windows with counters were set into the walls, alongside the rusted remains of machines whose purpose was no longer clear. Bisecting the vast space were a series of barriers arranged side by side with little gates between them, some of which were open. Beyond these, on the far side of the space, where the shadows deepened, there appeared to be stairs that led down into a much greater darkness.

  ‘This is where we’re going to live?’ Anya asked, not even attempting to hide her distaste.

  ‘For now,’ Silas said. ‘We agreed we need a base, and this is the safest place we could find. Of course, if you think you can do better you’re welcome to try.’ He raised an eyebrow at her, only continuing when she declined to answer. ‘We’re going to need more supplies. We need fuel for the generators, bedding, warm clothing. The food we have will only last a month or so at best, but this is a good place for us. We can make this into something. There are plenty of raw materials we can use, and it’s a lot safer than constantly moving from place to place out there.’

  ‘I think I preferred it when we were being hunted by the ARM,’ Anya said, unable to resist sniping again.

  ‘If you think that’s stopped, you’re kidding yourself.’ Silas turned to the others, choosing to ignore her. ‘Now, let’s at least attempt to make this place a little more comfortable, shall we?’

  ‘What’s it called?’ Tia said, speaking for the first time. ‘The city, I mean. If we’re going to make it a base, we should give it a name.’

  ‘How about Deadville?’ suggested Anya, still sulking.

  ‘What about Brickville?’ Rush suggested, giving the big guy a playful punch on the arm, the suggestion greeted by the big man shouting out his name at the top of his voice before treating each of them to a wide, toothy grin.

  ‘I think that’s an excellent name,’ Silas said, nodding his approval. He hooked a hand into the crook of the big man’s elbow and gently led him away, suggesting ways they could make Brickville a good place for them all to stay.

  Ambush

  Stubbs, the driver of the escort vehicle, saw the massive boulder tumbling down the hillside before him in plenty of time to stop. It cartwheeled end over end, making harsh cracking sounds as it splintered and broke up into smaller rocks which in turn smashed through the scrubby undergrowth, kicking up a vast dust cloud as they went. As large as the rocks were, Stubbs knew they posed no real threat to either his vehicle or the larger transporter behind it. Even if they’d been hit full on, both transporter and escort were built to withstand almost anything this harsh landscape could throw at them. Besides, the rockfall wasn’t even that close – the stones and rubble spewed out over the road surface about fifty metres or so in front of him and finally came to a halt.

  Stubbs sighed. In the same way he cleared snow in the winter months – when this area was so deep in the white stuff that a person could sink in it up to his waist – he’d now have to lower the large metal plough over the front of his vehicle to create a path for the transporter to pass through.

  He waved a hand over the comms unit on top of his dashboard, a holo-image from the interior of the cab behind him instantly appearing.

  ‘Did you see that?’ he said to the transporter driver, a surly woman named Horst.

  ‘I’m not blind,’ she sighed. ‘Why the hell did they insist on us taking this route? This gorge is a nightmare.’

  ‘I’m with you on that one. I’ll have to use the scoop to get all of that crap out of the way. Bear with me.’ Stubbs pushed down a lever and there was a loud whining noise as the hydraulic arms on either side of the cab slowly lowered the formidable-looking shovel into place.

  ‘How long do you think it’ll take?’ Horst asked.

  ‘Not so long. Sit tight.’

  ‘Well, get a move on. I’m in a hurry.’

  Stubbs flicked a hand out and turned the comms device off before swearing out loud, declaring exactly what he thought of the sour-faced bitch in the other vehicle. Who the hell was she to speak to him like that? His usual partner on this run had fallen sick, so Horst, whom nobody in the depot appeared to have heard of, had been assigned to the transporter vehicle. Now, instead of having his buddy to talk to, he had this harpy.

  ‘Get a move on,’ he said, mimicking her under his breath. He hadn’t even wanted to take this job from his own city, C3, to the capital – not when there wasn’t even the prospect of a good time to be had at their destination. C4 used to be a fine place to overnight, but since the terrorist attacks a few months back, all passes to visit Muteville had ceased.

  There was a loud clunk! and Stubbs’s cab rocked a little as the scoop came to a halt, just off the ground. He peered out through the windscreen. It was still a little hazy out there, so he waited a few moments for the dust from the rockslide to clear. When it did, the figure of a solitary boy was revealed on the hill ahead of him. The sun was at the youngster’s back so he was a perfect silhouette – his long hair blowing wildly in the wind as he swung the long rope sling round his head.

  ‘What the hell … ?’ Stubbs hit the button to activate the robotic cannon on top of his vehicle, reaching up with his other hand and pulling the goggles sitting on top of his head down over his eyes, his hands shaking as he fumbled for the button to turn them on. He was supposed to keep the eyewear on at all times; the gun was synced with them and would lock on to targets via the visual feed.

  He peered up in time to see the stone as it left the sling and raced through the air like a tracer bullet. Stubbs flinched as it hit the windscreen with a crack!, transforming the toughened glass instantly into a shattered mosaic which was impossible to see through. At the same time something dark, flying very low to the ground, flashed past his passenger-side window. Although it was gone before he could get a proper look at it, it was clear that the boy on top of the hill was not alone.

  What was going on?

  The loud bang on top of his cab made him jump in alarm – something had landed on the roof. Looking up, he heard the servo-engines that powered the turret gun swinging the weapon up in the same direction. There were three loud thunk! sounds above his head and the noise of the servo-motors cut out. This time, when he swung back around to face the shattered windscreen, the guns did not respond.

  ‘We’re being ambushed!’ Stubbs shouted into the comms unit, at the same time hitting another button that would override the automatic targeting and cause the guns to fire anyway, hoping it would be enough to scare away whoever was out there. He waited for the low flump-flump sound of pulsed-energy rounds, but nothing happened. ‘Get the hell out of here, Horst!’

  ‘I can’t!’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘Take a look!’

  Stubbs could hear the strident whine of the other vehicle’s engine. He stared in the large side mirror at the vehicle behind him, his mouth falling open at what he saw. The biggest guy he’d ever laid eyes on – a huge colossus of a man – had taken a grip of the front of the haulage vehicle, just below the grille, and was lifting it up off the ground, the tyres on either side spinning furiously in the air as Horst tried
in vain to get away. If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, Stubbs would not have believed it possible to lift the thing; the engine alone must weigh at least –

  All thoughts of Horst and the colossal mutant were banished from his mind when the thing suddenly appeared at the window on his side, hanging upside down only inches away. Face to face with the stuff of nightmares, Stubbs screamed and threw himself back from the glass on to the passenger’s side, his feet scrabbling on the seat he’d just vacated as he sought to get as far away as possible. The creature staring in at him was a vile monster. Multiple eyes, like big black berries, blinked in unison. The mouth – filled with long, dagger-like teeth – seemed to be grinning at him. Gibbering incoherently, Stubbs tried to retreat further, but his head and shoulders were already jammed up against the door on the passenger’s side. As quickly as it had appeared, the monstrous thing was gone, and he thought he could hear its clawed feet scrabbling about on the roof again.

  He’d forgotten to lock the doors!

  As if his thoughts had been read, the driver’s-side door flew open, letting in cold air and dust in equal measure. Stubbs thought he saw something – not the dark monster, but a glimpse of a small girl with long red hair; the vision gone almost as soon as it had formed. There was the unmistakable rattle of keys, and the engine died.

  Something had taken his keys. Something that was there one second, gone the next. The door remained open, and he wanted nothing more than to slide back over there and lock it shut, but his body wouldn’t respond and he remained where he was, frozen with fear. He thought he might be in danger of having a coronary if his heart continued to hammer away inside his chest as it was now. What was happening!? Until today he would have scoffed at the suggestion ghosts or monsters might exist, but what he’d seen in the last few moments … Well he’d –

  ‘Hello.’

  Stubbs jolted as if struck by an electrical current. Standing outside, looking in at him, was a tall black-robed figure with the whitest skin and the bluest eyes Stubbs had ever seen. Due to the height of the escort vehicle, only the albino’s upper half was visible, but that was more than enough for the driver, who found he couldn’t even speak.