by Chris Wright
“Do something Mat” He said afraid.
Samir did use to kickbox, but he wasn't very good at it as every time he got punched, he screamed a bit more than a grown man should, so his training only lasted a few weeks. He was no match for the fist of fury quickly shooting towards his chest. There was a sudden flicker of the lights and the carriage seemed to shake from side to side, before the whole train started screeching to a halt. The sudden shift in momentum caused them all to crash into the seats next to them and with a quick flick of her hair, the ninja assassin was back in attack mode.
Mateo typed a few more words quickly and the train carriage shuddered again, suddenly accelerating and causing them all to hold on to the seats they had collided with for dear life. The ninja-assassin was caught off guard and had nothing to hold on to. She was flung forward, crashing into the side wall. There was another clang as fourteen kilograms of fire extinguisher smacked into her chest knocking the wind out of her sails. This gave Brandon enough time to gather his composure, leap from his current position and try a risky wrestling bear-hug move that slammed them both against the glass, cracking it. Brandon quickly reached for the emergency hammer and with one swift blow drove it into the side of karate mum's head. Brandon had to look away in disgust as the result of the deadly impact exploded all around him. This really wasn't turning into a very pleasant day.
Brandon took a quick step back and collapsed on one of the seats next to him.
“How are we going to get out of here?” Mariam asked.
“Mateo, can you contact Sheryl?” Samir asked.
“No, not while we're underground, I can't seem to get through to the secure server, we'd need to get off at a station, one that's ideally less populated” He replied.
They all looked at the route map on the wall next to the body of the man whose fire Brandon had extinguished. They followed it along checking the list of stations.
“Little Hill Metro Station” Mariam shrieked giddily, “That's near the sports stadiums on the north side, there wouldn't be many people there this time of day”.
“Yeah, she's right” Samir said, “Can you get the train to stop there Mat?”
“Easy” he said, “We just have to make sure we don't hang around once I do”.
Sheryl
Sheryl's encrypted phone sprang to life on the desk in front of her and she quickly answered.
“Hi Mateo”
Mateo's voice sounded frantic on the other end, he hardly took a breath, a busy conveyor belt of words.
“We need help Sheryl, they've been tracking us, I've managed to get a signal at Little Hill Metro Station, but we need to get out of here quickly” He garbled.
Sheryl took a second to try and process everything. Why were they at a Metro Station in the north of the city she thought, they were heading east before. She quickly put that query to the back of her mind to concentrate on the task in hand and racked her brains for a solution. There was only one she could think of at such short notice.
“Is everyone okay?” She asked him. He hadn't mentioned any casualties, but she wanted to just make sure.
“Yeah we're all fine, but we need to get out of here asap, we're all on foot” He replied.
“Okay” Sheryl said, “Wait there and I will get someone with you right away, do not move”
Mateo signalled that he understood and cut the message.
“Rashid” Sheryl shouted, with him appearing seconds later, standing to attention.
“We have an emergency, we've got four of our members in danger at Little Hill Metro Station, can you get the chopper to pick them up?” She asked him.
“Well of course, but it will draw a lot of attention to ourselves” He replied.
He was right, that was the reason they had stuck to cars and vans with covert registration details. Their helicopter was state of the art, it may give away too many signals as to who was extracting these people, and potentially lead to the Elite discovering their whereabouts.
“Okay, make sure it's on standby at the edge of the city” She told him, “I'm going to contact unit three and see if they can swing by and grab them, we'll only use the chopper if necessary and as backup.
Rashid nodded and darted into the adjacent room to make the appropriate calls. Things weren't quite going to plan, but that's what happens when you've been compromised. The stress of everything would be visible with other people, but Sheryl had learnt to show a poker face at all times, not allowing any cracks in her calm demeanour to appear. It gave her colleagues confidence, and that's exactly how she needed them to feel to succeed.
Little Hill Metro Station
Danny, Joaquin and Christian pulled up at the Little Hill Metro Station, instantly seeing their new getaway guests standing there nervously. Danny pulled open the side door to the van and waved at them frantically to get in. They didn't hesitate, almost trampling over each other in the process. Samir, who was the last one to jump in, slammed the door shut behind him as the van pulled away.
“What happened?” Danny asked sensing an unease in the air.
“Well somehow they knew about us” Brandon replied short of breath, not from physical exercise but through nerves, “They took control of the car, then the other cars and the people”
“The zombie people” Samir added, thinking that sounded normal, “and also the kung-Fu lady and-”
“Sounds like you had a rough ride” shouted Joaquin trying to concentrate on getting them all to safety, “We're not far from the meeting point”.
He continued driving cautiously, as fast as he dared. The Elite were aware of their vehicle, so it wouldn't be long until they're spotted again. He hoped that the other factions and their guerrilla tactics would delay the Elite long enough for them to get out of the city. That suddenly gave him an idea.
“Christian, can you phone Sheryl? If we can somehow provoke more factions to launch assaults to the south of us that would distract them for long enough” He said.
“I can reach out to the other factions” Mateo added from behind him.
“You have a secure channel through to them?” Joaquin asked.
“I have a secure channel, not directly to them, but I can feed some info over and I'm pretty sure someone will pick it up”
They all agreed it was worth a shot, so Mateo set back to work on his laptop. His laptop was quickly beginning to be the most important tool in this getaway.
Chapter Ten – Dear Nephew
Monique, Olivia and Sofia were now on their journey, the same rendezvous point as their end goal. They had all had the same message that morning, and they had all been briefed on what to do. The phones exploded, the plan was set, and they raced off, Monique picking them both up en route.
They were all tense, the whole world had been turned on its head the last week, the whole of society turning into one ginormous colony of servants. Now they had destroyed their phones they had no way of knowing how the others were doing, it was just a waiting game to see how they were once they reached the meeting point where they were all going to be picked up. What ordinarily would have been a long and tedious start to the journey now seemed like an emotional roller-coaster. They were full of fear, their adrenalin pumping more fear into them by the minute. They were professional scientists, not trained soldiers, if anything happened, they wouldn't stand much of a chance.
They reached the centre of the city, the busiest part, and one they normally avoided in the car, but it was the most direct route and taking a circular route round would take three times longer. None of them were sure their adrenalin could pump through them that long without causing them damage, and didn't want to test it out. The centre of the city was a crowded metropolis, with people packed along each street, all acting out their daily motions. The coffee shops, bars and restaurants were all busy with them satisfying their basic needs and not wishing for anything more. They got a little further to the northern central districts and noticed that something didn't seem quite right. The people weren't
just mindlessly going about their daily business any more, they were doing it while watching them. Olivia thought it was just in her head to start with, dismissing it as a mere delusion, but the more she looked the more noticeable it became.
“Hey, maybe it's me, but are these people looking at us? And I mean all of them” She said to Monique and Sofia.
They both looked around outside the car carefully and were also sure they were.
”That's weird” Sofia said, to which Monique agreed.
They carried on, determined to reach their destination as quick as they could. So, what if these people were watching them, they were just citizens curious. Maybe too curious, but they decided to shrug it off. They were a couple of blocks further when they heard a tremendous explosion. Ahead of them was a tall building with its bottom third ripped out, glass fragments spewed forth creating a hazy cloud of sharp weapons that sliced into unlucky pedestrians.
“Jesus” Monique shouted, “Was that a bomb?”
“It looked like it” Olivia shouted back, panicked, “It's blocked our route, is there another way to get around”.
Monique swerved to the right, adding that she thought she knew one. A few seconds later there was a further explosion somewhere behind them, another bomb, but they had no idea where it had hit.
“Okay, what the hell is going on?” Sofia asked, getting no reply, as quite frankly none of them had any idea.
All Monique could do was drive, ignore what was going on and drive, get them to where they needed to be. Above them they heard a roar of aircraft soar past towards where the explosions were, a mixture of drones and larger craft. Something big was happening and they were caught in the middle of it. Another explosion, followed by another, both luckily way behind them back in the centre. The city had suddenly turned into a war zone.
Story face
Story face had been following the van that Danny jumped into, only to be taken off course by the bombing events. They started in the North of the city and had taken the Elite by surprise. They had now sprung up from the South of the city and then with huge loss of life, the downtown area. They had been trying to trace any communications to do with the bombs, they knew there were still unknown factions dotted around, sleeper cells waiting to strike, but this all seemed too coordinated. Different groups must have been in contact with each other.
He had quickly assembled a new team to intercept any communications they could, they needed to find out how they were doing this, and then they could eliminate the rebels involved. It didn't take long, it never does. All it needs is one small mistake, one tiny link, and then it can unravel the whole thing. The mistake came from one rebel using his traceable mobile phone. They were the only one to do so, but it was enough for them to get a lead, not just against the rebel factions fighting tooth and nail against the Elites rule, but also the gang of scientists they had been trying to follow earlier that day. They were able to trace and hack into the rebel's phone, get a live feed on it to monitor his group and every conversation they had. They would now know every plan they were putting in place. They were able to trace the other phone that was with a group of scientists heading north out of the city. It was all coming together perfectly, he had been scuppered once trying to trace the scientists, but fate had given him one more opportunity.
David’s House
Niel pulled up outside David's house and pipped his horn. David and Mike dashed outside seemingly in slow motion. It wasn't actually slow motion, but their animated movements causing their bodies to look like action movie stars running towards the camera. They both jumped in the back, Mike ran around the back of the car to get to the far door, Action man style, only to find David had pulled himself along to that side already.
“Oh” said Action man before he ran back to the other side, still with a fighting spring in his step.
Niel greeted them both and they both greeted him back. David looked a bit nervous, which was understandable, but Mike looked excited. Mike liked adrenalin, the rush it gave him. He was an adrenalin veteran, having survived more scrapes out in nature than most people experience in a series of life times. He was almost a near-death junkie.
“So are we going to go or just sit here” Mike asked, no let-up in his enthusiastic persona.
“Yeah, of course” Niel said hitting the gas.
The journey started with them all laughing about the ludicrous detonating phones, before turning more serious once they got their giggles out of the way, and remembering the enormity of their situation.
“So, I have been thinking about things a little” Mike said.
“What things?” David asked.
“Well, you're an Astrophysicist yes?” he replied to which David nodded, “and you're an Engineer Niel”.
Niel nodded, not sure where this was headed.
“So, I'm neither of those things. The rest of you guys are professionals in some science or just something technical, so I'm kind of the odd one out here” Mike said scratching his chin, “Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty cool and all that but I'm very different to you guys. I work in nature, I know how to live off the land, live self-sustainably, survive in the wild. You guys know nothing like that, so I don't know how I am supposed to fit into the whole thing”.
Niel and David did agree it seemed a bit odd. He was definitely the odd one out in that respect and none of them knew exactly what the plan was going to be once they got to the hideout.
“I guess we'll just have to wait and see” David said.
All the others had decided not to have the Neuro-Net implanted as they saw the implications for its misuse, but Mike was different there too. He didn't want it simply because it was unnatural, it was against everything he believed in. It was easy to avoid having one when you spent so much time in the wilderness anyway, and you really didn't one there. He knew what he needed to survive, there was nothing the worldwide web could teach him. Just then Niel's phone rang, causing Mike and David to look at him wide eyed.
“You were supposed to destroy your phone” They both said together, like they had rehearsed it in a speech-synchronisation class.
“Yeah, I know, but my little bro, I need it to contact him. You know he's with some rebel fighters, it's the only link I have with him to make sure he's okay” He replied defiantly, “I get him to check in with me regularly”.
Niel answered the call, nearly veering off the road accidentally in the process.
“Hey Karl, is everything okay?”
“Yeah I'm okay, it's getting intense right now though Niel” Karl replied over the crackly reception, “I wanted to tell you to avoid the central district completely, we've just been setting bombs off that way and there are more that are going to go off, so stay completely out of there”.
“Bombs? Why are you bombing now?“ Niel asked confused. As far as he was aware the rebel factions were supposed to be trying to link up and coordinate a more blistering attack and not indiscriminate explosions.
“Well Delta group seven, they got trigger happy. The general there isn't a fan of waiting, and he just couldn't help himself, so he set off a few bombs just to fuck the Elite off. Anyway, because of that we were given a tip off that a large convoy of the Elites guards were swooping into that area. The main core of their specialised forces are apparently in the central district to figure out what happened, so we're going to hit them as hard as we can and try and take advantage” Karl replied.
Niel thought that it made some kind of sense, but the innocent people caught up in it outweighed any benefit. Karl objected to Niel's opinion, collateral damage was a necessary evil he said. He sounded almost brainwashed when he said it, making Niel think that these rebel groups were no better than the Elite were.
“You know there's a plan Karl, your faction knows this, they were supposed to hold off doing anything. That's why I'm running to try and help fix this mess” Niel said disappointingly.
Karl could sense that disappointment in his voice and felt as if it was aimed at him. H
e knew deep down though that it wasn't at him, but the whole situation they now faced. Most the rebel factions knew of the fabled plan, it was an ambitious one, but some rogue generals didn't believe it would work, and wouldn't sit by and wait when they had opportunities to advance and attack where it hurt.
“Okay Karl, thanks for letting us know, we'll avoid that area. Please be safe” He said.
Karl said he would do his best, but the situation had changed rapidly and couldn't say for certain whether there would be more bombs or not. He agreed to let him know if he heard anything else. They said their goodbyes and Niel put the phone down on the dashboard.
“You heard all that yeah?” He said glancing round at his disapproving passengers.
“Oh yeah” Mike said shaking his head, “We're about to enter a whole new shit storm aren't we”.
“If we can get out of the city, we'll be okay” David said, “So just get us there Niel”.
Niel continued the fraught journey, taking a detour to the east of the city. They could see columns of smoke rising from the downtown area as craft, some of which they had never seen before, zoomed across the sky above them towards it. Niel looked in his rear-view mirror and noticed what looked like a swarm of bees in the air floating towards them.
“What is that?” He asked.
David and Mike looked around to see the same swarm of grey to silver tinged cloud as it swirled in a circular motion. Before they had time to really figure out what was going on the swarm descended down to them at a terrific pace and shrouded the vehicle, covering every available space on its exterior. Niel screeched the car to a halt. They were surrounded by thousands of tiny Nano-bots all giving off a red flash, accompanied by a buzzing sound.