by Mike Essex
I placed the earpiece to his ear and the transformation was instant. The man who had seconds ago been completely docile was now a raging wreak thrashing about in his restraints desperate to get free.
“I’ll kill all of you!” he shouted.
He looked me directly in the eye and said the words. “We will gut you first, Emmie Keyes.”
Before he could speak any further Jacobi dived on to him and ripped the earpiece out. He tossed it on the floor and stepped on it furiously, crushing every last bit of circuitry.
The destruction of the earpiece could not remove the stain on my mind of what I had just seen. As soon as the earpiece had been put in place the man’s remaining eye had changed to a deep orange colour. I sunk down to the floor remembering the last time I had seen those eyes and the destruction they had brought with them.
I felt something sticking to my hand and looked at it. The contact lens that had fallen from the man’s eye was stuck to me, a blue hue radiating from its centre. Suddenly everything fell into place. It wasn’t just him; all of the soldiers must have had orange eyes hidden by contact lenses.
That’s why they’d found us so quickly in the clock tower. Why the twin soldiers hadn’t died when we killed their brothers and what the signal from the earpiece was for.
“It’s how they communicate,” I said. “The earpiece, it connects them together. We have to evacuate everyone right now.”
“They’re going to the prison. We are safe here,” said Jacobi.
“You don’t understand. Every single SO13 soldier just saw what happened here and if they can locate the source of the earpiece then that means hundreds of soldiers now know where we are hiding.”
“Ring the alarm. NOW!” shouted Jacobi.
PART THREE
FORTY FOUR
The sound of the siren sent a chill through my body, only emphasised further by the frequent “Evacuation notice” voice-over cutting through the deep ringing noise.
“Where do we go?” I asked Jacobi.
“South east entrance,” he explained.
“And if they attack from that entrance?”
“Then we’re all doomed anyway. I’m the only one who knows where that tunnel leads on the surface. If they come in that way then we may as well give up now.”
Jacobi changed direction and ran away from the medical centre. Not wanting to leave her behind I went the opposite way and dashed into Olive’s room. At the sight of me she jumped out of the bed and tried to hide behind the bookcase. “Stay away. I kept your secret. I promise,” she shouted, her arms pulled around her face to protect her.
“I know you don’t trust me but we have to get out of here. Soldiers are on their way,” I explained.
“So what? You’ll just kill them with your mind powers and I want to be as far away as possible when that happens.”
“I can’t. I don’t get to choose when they happen they just do. Right now we have to escape.”
“Well you’d better think of something quickly. I hear there are a lot of people depending on you now,” she said, almost sarcastically.
“We have to go,” I screamed, hoping to talk some sense into her. “I’ll carry you out of here if I have to. I’ll even tell everyone my secret if it means that much to you. Just come on.”
I reached out for her hand and heard a deafening rumble coming from the ceiling above us, no doubt part of the soldiers’ arrival. They were coming.
“Are you doing that?” asked Olive.
We looked up at the ceiling and saw specks of the ground above start to fall down. Those tiny fragments quickly turned to large chunks of rock which scattered down throughout the room.
A look of horror filled Olive’s face as she realised I wasn’t joking and she said “Ok let’s go.”
She reached out her hand for mine just as the ceiling above us gave way. I dived towards the door and out into the hallway dodging most of the rubble and in the smoke that formed I saw a large glass container where Olive had stood.
Not thinking for my own safety I ran towards the container to find Olive’s lifeless body crushed beneath it, her hand still outstretched as a reminder of the trust she placed in me, forever betrayed. As more of the smoke cleared I could see the full extent of the damage, her body had been split in two by the container’s sharp edges, a brutal death for someone so young.
I stared at the glass and could see a soldier inside preparing to attack. There was nothing else I could do for Olive now. I’d finally earned her trust but it had meant nothing in the end.
The glass door of the container began to hiss open and before the soldier could emerge I ran from the door shouting to two of Jacobi’s citizens that the soldiers had arrived. They foolishly ran into the room and seconds later I heard two gunshots ring out. I didn’t stick around to see who had won the fire-fight.
In my head I ran through the names of the people I wanted to protect, hopelessly trying to remember where I had last seen them. I hadn’t seen R&R since dinner the night before and the last I’d seen of Grace was in our room before we went to bed. As for Anya and Alyx I had no idea where they even slept.
I knew Grace could take care of herself and that R&R were aware of the evacuation procedures, Rufus had already given me a detailed rundown days before. I couldn’t care less about Chris and Tom, which left Anya and Alyx as the only unknowns. I’d promised to protect them and couldn’t leave without them.
If I was going to find them there seemed little chance of escape without fighting my way out so I ran to the war room hoping to find some weapons left.
“How nice of you to join us,” Jacobi greeted me inside with an assortment of other citizens who had decided to stay and fight. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist the lure of one last battle. What’s your poison?” he pointed to the weapon selection, of which many cases had already been raided by the citizens.
I knew taking the soldiers head on would be futile. Thanks to their body armour gel and orange eyes they were practically invincible. Even the soldiers we’d shot in the head on the surface had only died because they were disconnected from their earpieces at the same time.
Quickly I explained everything I knew about the soldiers and the orange eyed signal to Jacobi and we drew upon one conclusion. “We need fire. Lots of fire,” I explained.
“Well I’m sure that can be arranged,” said Jacobi.
With new weaponry in my hands and several grenades on my belt I headed to the main dining area and the overhanging walkways. I could hear the mechanical whir of the soldier’s machines as they cut through the ceiling and the gunshots of battles erupting around me.
As I reached the walkway I watched as five citizens were gunned down by a single SO13 soldier. They tried to shoot back but their bullets bounced off his skin. As the soldier lowered his weapon satisfied at his kill Jacobi caught him from behind and cut through the man’s neck with his samurai sword. His head reached the floor before his body, his eyes devoid of life.
“That’s for my citizens,” shouted Jacobi, breathing heavily from the exertion required to cut through a man’s flesh and bone. I expected the body to rise up again but the disconnect between his head and body made that impossible. He’d discovered a new way to kill them, admittedly a horrific one.
I heard the loud rumbling of more pods making their way through the ceiling directly above us and I got ready. “Everyone clear the area,” I shouted to the citizens below, in an effort to minimise the collateral damage. As the pods broke through the ceiling the citizens scattered and made their way up the stairs at the edge of the hall trying to avoid the falling stones and glass. Many of them didn’t make it.
We waited until the last surviving citizen had made it to the stairwell and only then did we toss our incendiary grenades across the floor of the hall. Hundreds of grenades rained down into the large space, gathered around the pods and the bases of the stairwells. Four of mine landed directly on their targets next to each pod, the other two lost in the cha
os.
The explosions rocked the room and sent countless specks of fire swirling into the air. They landed throughout the room, setting fire to the wooden tables and chairs and transforming the dining hall area into an inferno.
The change in temperature was instant, turning the underground room into a sauna and most importantly shattering the locking mechanisms on the pods. Inside one of the pods I could see a soldier beat his hands against the glass trying to break free as toxic fumes choked the air from his lungs.
If the smoke didn’t kill him I knew that the fire would. The same went for the other twenty five soldiers who had fallen into the room and any others who followed. This was the plan I had given the citizens, and the soldiers’ blood was on my hands now. Yet there was no time for grief, getting out alive was the only thing that mattered now.
The entire lower level of the great hall was ablaze, completely impassable now, leaving the upper walkway the only way for citizens to exit.
“This way,” I shouted to a few citizens who had watched my attack from the upper part of the great hall. They started to run across the walkways and over to the other side of the room, one step closer to the exit.
“We will never forget this,” said an elderly citizen who was helped across the walkway by his twin. I looked at the faces of the citizens desperately hoping to see Alyx and Anya in the crowd but their faces didn’t appear. Luckily I saw the face of someone I recognised.
“Grace!” I ran down towards her. “Have you seen Alyx or Anya?”
“No,” she said, sounding defeated. “I’ve looked all over but this place is too big. I just couldn’t find them.”
A sense of panic spread throughout my body as the promise I’d made to protect them repeated itself in my mind. “We have to find them Grace. I promised.”
“We promised,” Grace reminded me. “I won’t leave here without them either.”
We walked back into one of the main corridors and away from the smoke of the main hall. Grace ran me through a list of places that she had checked and we tried to think of other places they could be.
“Did you check the food storage area?” I asked.
“Yeah,” replied Grace, “and the residential quarter.”
“I didn’t see them in the medical centre, the war room or the main hall,” I added.
“I even checked the library and you know how much I hate books,” said Grace.
“Yeah you always did prefer the giant wardrobe,” As the words left my mouth Grace repeated them back to me as the realisation hit her that the girls had to be there.
We could hear the rumbling of more soldiers’ capsules, pushing their way closer to the base. If the girls weren’t in the wardrobe then we’d have to hope they’d made it to the exit already.
Time was running out for Q-Whitehall. For all of us.
FORTY FIVE
“Alyx! Anya!” we shouted the girl’s names until our voices were hoarse, as we got closer to the wardrobes, not caring if any soldiers heard us and putting the girl’s safety before anything else.
We heard no reply from the corridors so we entered the large expanse of the wardrobes. Clothes lay scattered across the floor; a few citizens clearly grabbing what they could as soon as the alarm was raised. Where some had gathered weapons to fight, others had taken food to sustain them and clothes to keep them warm.
We repeated the girls’ names on our arrival in the room. “Girls? It’s us, Emmie and Grace. You can come out now, it’s safe.”
As the words left my mouth I heard a loud gunshot echo out and I ducked down. The bullet erupted through the wardrobe, tearing off pieces of wood that splintered over me.
“Don’t hurt us. We’re just trying to help two little girls. Please,” I begged.
Their reply came in the form of a second wave of bullets that shattered one of the giant mirrors and cut through rows of clothes. To avoid the gunfire I pressed my body flat onto the floor hoping that the shelves of clothes would hide me. As I hit the floor I could see a tiny face peeking out from the underneath of a large brown duffel coat.
I mouthed the words “Are you hurt?” and the girl, either Anya or Alyx, lightly shook her head. Knowing that she was alive and unhurt meant that her twin was also ok and I breathed a sigh of relief. I moved a finger to my lips and made a shushing sound. She nodded in agreement.
Grace crawled over beside me and smiled when she saw the girl’s face. She pointed to one of the mirrors and in it we could see a reflection of our attacker from the other side of the shelves. He was holding a submachine gun tightly and looked panicked.
Unless one of the SO13 team had changed their clothing this was no soldier and must have been a Q-Whitehall citizen. His grey and blue pyjamas all but confirmed it. Regardless of where he was from, he was a madman with a gun and trying to reason with him was not working.
Grace and I mouthed a plan to each other and we quickly put it into action. I walked to the left side of the shelves whilst she positioned herself on the right side. After we’d given each other a thumbs up I picked a shoe from the shelf and threw it around the corner of the shelves. As expected, the man opened fire on the shoe in a panic and using this to her advantage Grace dashed around the corner.
I heard the satisfying thud as he went down.
Running around the corner I could see that the man now lay on the floor, a red mark on his head. We propped him up and forced his arms through one of the thickest coats we could find. After that was done we pulled his arms round to his back and tied the sleeves of the coat together. We left his feet free to give him a fighting chance of getting out of the structure alive if he wanted to redeem himself.
“Girls, it’s safe now,” I whispered.
The brown duffel coat slowly raised up slightly as one of the girls poked her head out to check. At the same time her twin did the same, rising up from underneath an ivory dress. As the dress rose up I could see it had been punctured by the bullets with a red mark stained into it.
“Oh my God,” I lifted the dress in the air to find Alyx, now recognisable by her hairstyle, holding on tightly to her leg. All the screams she had been holding in were now released and she cried out in pain. We tried to get her to move her hands so we could see the extent of the damage and for minutes she simply refused, far too scared to reveal the horrors underneath.
“It’s ok. You’ve been so brave, just let us take a look and I promise we’ll make it better,” I explained. “You don’t have to look ok?”
She closed her eyes and reluctantly moved her hands to either side. The bullet had grazed her skin, taking out a small chunk of flesh but thankfully it had not lodged itself inside of her.
“It’s just a scratch,” I lied, knowing full well this was a serious injury that had nearly killed Olive. I kept reminding myself that we’d found help on the surface for Olive and I knew we’d do the same for Alyx.
Grace helped me wipe away the blood with one of the dresses and we wrapped thick silk ties around her leg to stop the bleeding. It was a temporary solution but meant she wouldn’t see the bleeding or the injury until we had escaped.
“You can open them now,” I told her. She opened her eyes and they lit up at the sight of the colourful fabrics wrapped around her leg. “See, it looks great,” I joked. “Now let’s get you out of here.”
I gave Alyx a piggy back and by connecting several belts together was able to make a harness that would hold her in place in case she became too weak to hold on. Grace did the same for Anya so she wouldn’t feel left out, and to make it as easy as possible to run and fight without putting the girls in danger.
“Time to get out of here,” I told the girls.
FORTY SIX
Grace grabbed my arm and whispered for me to look ahead. We could see two soldiers walking away from us, stepping over three dead citizens whose bodies lay bloodied on the floor.
With two near-immortal killing machines in our way I didn’t fancy our chances but we were running out of options. The on
ly other way to the great hall was through the medical centre where the soldiers had first found out about our location; a place bound to be crawling with the SO13 team. This was still our best option.
I planned to try and sneak past them, ducking into one of the rooms on the corridor and then sneaking out when they walked past. It was a long shot but if they didn’t check the room on their return it promised some chance of escape.
Grace had other plans. She raised her gun up in preparation.
“Try not to kill them,” I whispered, trying to minimise the bloodshed.
“I don’t have to. The soldier on the left, aim for his right ear. You got it?”
“We have to get closer. I’m not as good a shot as you.”
We walked slowly down the corridor, our guns held in place, knowing they could turn around at any moment. The soldiers rapidly approached a corner and I knew it was now or never. I nodded to Grace and we each fired in unison.
My bullet ripped through the soldier’s right ear tearing it from his head. The earpiece shattered with it, broken shards flying out across the corridor. He fell down instantly no longer receiving the signal that was keeping him going.
Grace’s bullet also caught purchase of the target, ripping ear from flesh but there was no sound of gadgetry breaking into pieces. The soldier turned quickly towards us and we dived into the room next to us, pressing our bodies up against either side of the doorway hoping he hadn’t seen us.
We heard a solitary gunshot, as the soldier put an end to his friend’s life.
The door was flung open and he burst into the room. Seeing an opportunity to finish the job Grace jumped on to the guard’s back, grabbing him by his neck and with her other free hand she yanked the earpiece from his left ear. His body went limp and Grace jumped off him, crushing the earpiece with her foot.
“Mental note. Check their ears before shooting,” said Grace. “Are you ok Anya?”