by Chris James
“Mr Perkins, please use our more unorthodox channels to convey to the Chinese leadership that their response to this crisis is simply not good enough.”
Perkins felt himself shrug again as he replied: “That’s what we’ve been doing since the seventh of February, PM.”
Napier hissed: “Well, try making a bit more effort, before we’re all dead in a few weeks, understood?”
Perkins nodded and said: “Of course.” The screen went blank. He exhaled loudly and in his mind, he bemoaned his department’s impotency. He stood and padded across his spacious office, the huge, deep-pile rug on the wooden floor deadening his steps. On the wall hung a portrait of the old GCHQ at Cheltenham, a vast circular building from a time when the former United Kingdom had still wielded some measure of power in the world. He scoffed aloud when he recalled that it had been sold in the vast asset-strip of 2050, when the English government had needed to raise funds to purchase equipment to fight the rising sea levels. He strained his memory to recall what the building was used for now—a distribution centre for a Chinese logistics company? Today, the term ‘GCHQ’ referred to the now-defunct MI6 headquarters at Vauxhall as the bulk of MI5’s operations were run from that dilapidated building.
A small notification in his lens flashed in the bottom-right of his view. “Finally,” he muttered aloud. “Computer?” he called, eschewing the popular habit of giving the assisting machines silly pet names.
“Yes, Mr Perkins?”
“Confirm contact and secure, please.”
“Affirmative and secured,” came the instant reply.
“Play on general audio.” He did the top button of his suit jacket up and folded his arms. He stared at the mud-brown River Thames as it flowed towards London Bridge. Above it, the leaden February sky promised only more rain.
The voice of the Englishman in Beijing seemed to speak from each corner in Perkins’ office. The spy’s normally confident tone sounded more subdued than usual: “The Englishman reporting from Beijing. Time of report: 14.23, Friday 24 February 2062. This has been a bloody trying week with precious little progress. Actually, make that no progress at all. Our diplomatic mission is in despair. Everyone, from the ambassador down, frets and worries about the destruction happening in Europe. Worse, there really does seem to be little any of them can do. One of the staffers in the embassy related a meeting in which the ambassador suggested that perhaps if they sent the Chinese politburo replications of every invention Great Britain had produced in the preceding four hundred years, it might help those stuffy old men to reconsider their inertia. The staffer described the atmosphere in the meeting as ‘beyond pathetic’, like the Greeks whining they should be spared because they invented democracy.
“The Chinese, as is their wont, are more concerned with the potential embarrassment—or loss of ‘face’—that the Third Caliph’s adventures might cause them in the eyes of their partners in countries in South America and Africa. According to my military contact, Chinese embassies in the affected European capitals are trying extremely hard to get their nationals out ahead of the invading forces, and despite the speed at which European countries are collapsing, he seemed to think the invaders have been instructed to allow safe passage to fleeing Chinese craft. My contact also implied some of the wealthier and better-connected Europeans were escaping to China on these transports, but whether they will be permitted to stay in the Middle Kingdom remains an open question.”
Perkins wondered if the spy would say anything remotely useful or relevant to England’s predicament.
“Finally, I cannot overemphasise how little impact the Caliphate’s invasion of Europe is actually having inside the vastness of China. Minor disasters like super-AI traffic malfunctions and mid-level corruption scandals garner far more cross-media attention than international events in relatively obscure parts of the world. Even on the international stage, the invasion falls behind tensions with India. Part of this can be ascribed, as I’ve mentioned, to the idea of the loss of Chinese face, so the government prefers the official media to downplay what is happening.
“However, in my opinion, much of the reason for the lack of concern is simply that the Chinese population does not see the Caliphate’s invasion as a priority. Indeed, last night I attended a soirée at the new Brazilian embassy, which must be the most well-appointed foreign embassy in all of Beijing. In their vast ballroom, I found myself chatting with a mixed bunch in a smallish group, and a young Chinese man lamented what was happening. Then, like so many before him, he wondered aloud how the people of such a small island like England could have come to rule a quarter of the globe, and how sad it was that they were now so impotent. I wanted to glass the slit-eyed bastard right across his wide, round, and very arrogant face, but I didn’t. Message ends.”
A wry smile creased Perkins’ face. He said: “Computer, let me know when the PM has a break in her schedule.”
The computer answered: “Requests are currently being deferred to her chief aide.”
“Oh god,” Perkins muttered, “spare me pretty-boy Webb. It’s not important. It can wait.”
Chapter 20
06.49 Friday 24 February 2062
A SUDDEN DREAD deep inside Corporal Rory Moore’s spirit warned him that danger approached. He made his best effort to push the fatigue back but what little energy remained began to desert him. He heard steps inside the dank and cold cave, slow and delicate and cautious. He regarded this development positively, for if it were the enemy, he would be dead by now. He heard distant whispers but could not understand them. The footsteps stopped.
Adrenalin poured into his bloodstream once again and gave him the strength to lift his head and see darkened figures in the cave. But the adrenalin could not fully mask the pain of moving from the cold rock. The figures in the cave entrance receded and he felt relieved, but he could not think why he should. He let his head relax back against the rock. Dryness in the back of his throat made him cough suddenly. The cough became a choke and he felt his whole chest ache, protesting the lack of food, the dampness, and the chill. The choke passed but the pain remained to recede at its leisure, as if it wanted Rory to know that it owned him now, and would take its time as it wished.
At the entrance, he saw that the figures had returned. Masculine outlines approached him. One asked him something in Spanish that Rory didn’t understand.
“NATO,” he hissed, shocked at how difficult it had become to push air through his throat with sufficient power to form a sound.
There followed an exchange between up to four men; Rory couldn’t be sure how many people were in the group. One murmur sounded conciliatory, the next dismissive, the following aggressive. Suddenly, he heard a sharp scrape, like a blade being pulled from a scabbard, and one of them became angry. He spoke a volley of hard, aggressive sounds. This outburst was followed by a sequence of calmer utterances, and Rory began to wonder how much danger he was in.
As dawn’s light increased outside the cave, details inside became clearer, and Rory began to make out faces and heads and stomachs that sagged over tattered jeans. He counted five figures, all male, but their statures suggested varying ages. One took a few steps to him and asked: “You not speak Spanish, no?”
Rory shook his head and said: “No, sorry.”
“This man here,” the individual said, pointing to one of the figures further back. “He want to kill you. All his family dead because NATO no good.”
This seemed unreasonable to Rory, and abruptly he felt the full hostility that his lack of the language had thus far only suggested. He croaked, “I am sorry,” but stopped because the fear and effort of speaking combined to silence him.
Rory’s interlocutor turned back to his colleagues and there followed more dialogue, much of it sounding placatory to Rory’s ears. A part of Rory’s mind wondered why they should blame him personally for the military of which he was a part having insufficient resources to defend these civilians. Did they think this was a picnic for the soldiers?
The man leaned back in and Rory smelled stale sweat and urine. When he spoke, his voice carried an undercurrent of threat: “If you will walk, you can come with us. We will take you to food and shelter. If you not walk, you stay here.”
With a supreme effort, Rory forced himself off the rock. At once, a wave of dizziness swept over him and he gripped the rock and paused. When it passed, he pulled himself upright. None of the other men made any effort to assist him.
He threw them a weak smile and rasped: “I’ll walk, guys. It’ll be fun.”
Chapter 21
11.19 Friday 24 February 2062
WITH A SENSE of melancholy that made each step twice as heavy as it should have been, Private Philippa ‘Pip’ Clarke trudged up the path that would take her over the low mountain and onto the next village. Crimble’s deep moans still rung in her ears, and she doubted she would see him alive again.
The doctor—or at least the haggard, unwashed young woman who’d claimed to be a doctor—only gave Crimble a fifty-fifty chance of surviving the amputation. The weight of melancholy built up until it morphed into dismay. The relentless stress of covering distance over mountainous terrain when a Caliphate ACA could appear out of nowhere and kill her in a moment, ground her spirit down. She hated herself for leaving him, but they both knew she had no choice. One of them had to try. And anyway, even if he survived the amputation, he wouldn’t be able to travel for several days at least. The lengths of time injuries required to heal when GenoFluid packs were unavailable frightened Pip.
The distance from the first village she’d almost dragged Crimble to, Capilieria, and the coast where they might contact a submarine for extraction, was a mere twenty-five kilometres in a straight line. This would be a day’s pleasant jog in full kit and full health. Now, exhausted, under immense pressure, and enfeebled through a lack of nourishment, the distance seemed to present a near-insurmountable challenge.
Pip cursed the rocks and stones that littered the track she climbed, and kicked the occasional one out of the way to relieve the frustration. The sun beat down hot and bright, and it struck Pip how rapidly events had unfolded: less than three short weeks ago, the New Persian Caliphate had exploded—both figuratively and literally—onto the global stage, annihilating American and British naval formations and then burning Israel to a crisp. Now their ACAs and armies swarmed over southern Europe, killing and destroying at will. She reflected that NATO might have already collapsed under this onslaught.
Pip crested the hill and looked south at the distant blue haze of the Mediterranean as it shimmered where it met the lighter blue sky. She spun left, right, and all around in a half-hearted attempt to scan the sky for any tell-tale black dots in the distance, among the flecks of high cloud, that might be roaming Caliphate machines. For the umpteenth time, she told herself that if she ever were to see such a thing, she’d only have enough time to say her prayers. Once again, she repeated to herself that the absence of tech on her body meant invisibility. In the dank warrens of caves inside the mountainsides around Capilieria and the two closest villages, Pip found out that the local population had realised, with a speed that only instant death for failure could engender, that any tech at all would bring the Caliphate machines to rain down destruction.
She took a step forward and began a long, shallow descent along a path that she saw disappeared into a forest of evergreens. The monotony of descending calmed her mind and gave her a certain clarity after the violence of the preceding days. When she judged the sun’s position had moved sufficiently across the blue sky, she found a rocky overhang under which she could shelter. She collected some broken branches, pines, dead leaves and other handfuls of forest debris to make a less-uncomfortable place to rest. She extracted her BHC sleeve from its pouch and wrapped herself up. Once settled, she could see only a small part of the afternoon sky. She wanted to watch for enemy ACAs but she began to doze.
Pip woke with a start and realised at once that a couple of hours at least must have passed. By her own calculations, she now had between three and four hours before nightfall which should be safe, providing the Caliphate adhered to its current search routines. As she peeled off the BHC sleeve, she reassured herself that the Iberian peninsula was vast indeed, and the enemy only had so many machines in theatre, most of which were hopefully engaged supporting their advance. With her BHC sleeve stowed in the pouch behind her calf, Pip pushed on towards the coast.
Chapter 22
14.16 Friday 24 February 2062
RORY LICKED THE bowl of tomato soup clean. The older man who’d first spoken to him in the cave, called Pablo, had told him its Spanish name, but Rory couldn’t recall and now did not care. At last, with proper food in his stomach, his exhaustion lifted with his mood. He glanced around the darkened area, part of a disused mine a long way from the entrance. Tar torches lit the walls like some medieval castle and made the still air smell of burning liquorice. The dirt floor had a layer of straw to deaden sound, and Rory was one of thirty or more people sitting at tables scattered around the area. On the far side, he saw teenage boys hauling buckets of water in and placing one under each torch, lest a drop of burning pitch escaped its holder and set the straw aflame.
Rory felt a firm hand on his shoulder and heard: “How was the gazpacho? Good?” Pablo sat down on the bench next to Rory.
The Englishman answered: “The best thing I have ever eaten.”
“Good.”
Rory looked into Pablo’s craggy face topped with a sprinkle of white hair and said: “Thank you.”
The old man shrugged and said: “We have enough food for now. And it is not your fault it all go so bad.”
“What about the guy with the machete?” Rory asked. “Does he agree with you now?”
“Bruno?” Pablo queried with a scowl. “Do not be worry about him. He say he knew all time about Caliphate and war.” Pablo shook his head as though in confusion, then shrugged again and concluded: “But he also suffer, like we all suffer. Friends gone, family gone. Very bad.”
The soup that had so refreshed Rory now sat heavy in his stomach. These ordinary people, only different from him because they spoke another tongue, were enduring a new reality that would in all probability dominate the whole of Europe in a matter of weeks. He looked past the wrinkles into Pablo’s eyes and saw a flash of pain there that he felt inside his own body, the pain of lost certainty, of lost futures for all of them.
“Gah,” Pablo said, breaking eye contact. “Come with me. I must show you something.” The old man leaned on the table to stand up and walked heavily towards one of the four tunnels that led out of the main area.
Rory followed, catching up with Pablo in a couple of strides. Pablo did not speak as they passed other smaller areas hewn from the rock. Rory was at a loss to think what could have been mined here, perhaps tin or some other metal, but did not want to ask his companion, who stared at the ground and appeared lost in thought.
Suddenly, a shriek rang out from an area off the main tunnel up ahead of them. Pablo sighed and said: “This is bad. The injured suffer too much. Worst.”
“Can’t you get any supplies, even anaesthetics?”
“Where from? Villages all destroyed. Hospitals, people destroyed. Any tech and you are dead in one minute.”
Rory didn’t know what to say.
They walked on in silence and then Pablo steered them right into a small, apparently closed area, lit by more of the same torches. Rory counted half a dozen people lying flat on their backs on the straw-covered floor.
Pablo motioned to a woman who approached them. He stuck a thumb out at Rory and told her: “Here is NATO soldier.”
The woman appraised Rory, tutted and tilted her head so that her straight, brown hair came out from behind her ear. She tucked it back again and said in accented English: “We are having two, over there and there. Perhaps you are knowing them?”
Rory stepped over to the first figure. The gaunt, pasty-white face seemed familiar, but the thin
moustache confirmed the patient’s identity. “Crimble,” Rory said in shock.
The woman said: “You know who he is, yes?”
Rory spoke through his shock, leaning in to take a closer look at his erstwhile comrade. The straw crackled gently under his boots. “There’s no doubt,” he said. “That is Private Colin Wimble, Royal Engineers, one of my squad. But I still don’t believe it’s really him. It can’t be.”
“Why, what happen?” the woman asked.
“They—the rest of my squad—were on a transport taking them back to barracks. It must have been shot down. All of the transports must have been destroyed. No way could any of them surv—shit, what’s that?” Rory said suddenly on realising that there was no limb below the bandage on Crimble’s right upper arm.
“Gangrene,” the woman said with a shrug.
Rory looked at her and asked: “Will he live?”
“I do not, I cannot, know. I never deal with such problems before. Maybe fifty-fifty. I do not know.”
Pablo said: “There was woman came in with him, young like him—”
“Pip?” Rory exclaimed, his heart suddenly racing. “What did she look like?” he asked, wanting to be certain.
The woman shrugged and said: “Not too tall. Short black hair. Round face.”
“Where is she?” Rory asked.
Pablo and the woman looked at each other in some confusion. The woman said: “She left. Few hours ago.”
Rory brought his feelings into check. Every moment he had spent lying in that cave, he’d felt certain his beloved Pip must have perished. “Where was she going?”