by Andy Remic
The gun levelled at Carter’s dangling legs.
There came a distant hiss and then a thump as the 7.62mm Soviet sniper round took the Nex in the chest and spread most of its guts across the interior of the room. Carter pulled his legs to safety and glanced back across the hazy, snow-filled expanse.
Good fucking shot, Ed! he thought.
And about time!
The snow was falling heavier now, huge flakes spinning softly and blurring the world through which Carter ran, leaving footprints across the flat roof. He halted suddenly, halfway between the roof’s edge and the doorway leading to the stairs below.
The stairs ...
How many Nex?
‘How many, Eddie?’
‘Around ten entered the building. It was hard to tell due to the heavy snow. I only caught their tail-end.’
‘Can you see me?’ Carter peered through the heavy fall.
‘Just about, but things are getting worse ... wait ...’ Carter heard the whizz and thud of a sniper shot. ‘The fuckers have tagged me—get your arse out of there, Carter—get out of there now!’
Carter pulled free an HPG and removed the pin, clicking the dial to ‘prox.mine’. He rolled the grenade through the snow towards the head of the stairwell, then dropped another three at his feet where they spun like tops.
He turned, and ran for it—
The edge of the building loomed close as Carter pulled free his Sp_drag—nicknamed a ‘Skimmer’, or ‘Parasite Skimmer’—and leapt up onto the rim. Bullets suddenly howled through the snow and Carter flinched, half-ducking as three Nex sprinted from the doorway behind him with their guns on full automatic—there was a tiny click and a roar shook the building as the HighJ chemical fury kicked the Nex’s ragged corpses high into the air.
Carter jumped.
Shrapnel cut through the snow.
He caught the cable, swayed for a moment, secured the Sp_drag and allowed himself to drop down the swaying wire connecting the two buildings—boots locked together, mouth a grim dry line.
Bullets cut through the snowfall behind him and made him scrunch his body tight. He glanced down, and saw a spread of Nex moving into the building where Ed was positioned.
‘Bastards.’
A 7.62mm sniper round took a Nex on the ground. Then another. And then they were in ...
More bullets screamed from behind him as another explosion from his proximity-primed HPG rocked the world, and distant sirens wailed. Carter, clinging onto the Skimmer with one hand, pulled free his Browning and began to fire ... one, two, three shots, back towards the window and the masked face of a Nex—
‘Carter,’ came Ed’s voice. ‘I ...’ There was a wave of crackling static.
‘This is not turning out to be a good fucking day,’ hissed Carter as the Browning clicked on an empty chamber and the Nex swarmed out not just behind him—at the edge of the roof—but ahead of him, on the elevated roof position recently occupied by Ed.
Carter’s eyes narrowed as he sped down the cable through the heavy snow. The wind buffeted him, making him sway dangerously. Bitter coldness stung him through his clothing.
The Nex levelled their automatic weapons, tracking with precision and patience. There were six of them ahead—copper-eyed stares fixed grimly on the speeding, falling target.
Without a flicker of emotion, they opened fire.
CHAPTER 5
A SOUR PERFUME
Mongrel squatted in the alleyway, boots shifting slightly on the shattered concrete debris which littered the warped, corrugated road. His gloved hand reached out, steadying himself against the twisted metal skeleton of a rusted fire-wreck Volvo.
Mongrel, eyes squinting, unshaved face contorted in concentration and fear yet marked with an inner strength that made him the son-of-a-bitch rough-and-tumble psychopathic good-natured bear-like Spiral-op bastard that he was, stared out at the distant target.
He licked at dry lips, revealing broken, crooked teeth—victims of too many beer-fuelled late-night bar brawls, the smashed stumps reminders of the impact of innumerable knuckle sandwiches. Mongrel’s face was etched with battle-weariness. A deep and ingrained bitterness. And in this new world, fear was never far from his mind ... Mongrel gripped the stock of his Sterling sub-machine gun and his eyes narrowed as they peered over the twisted metal frame before him.
A fine mist of rain was drifting and falling, chilling Mongrel to the marrow. His guts were rumbling and his arse was on fire, making him even grumpier than usual.
‘It’s a shame,’ said The Priest, in a small but mournful voice. Mongrel glanced, to where the huge barrel-chested man lay on his considerable belly, dressed in full urban combat clothing but still wearing his sandals and rosary beads—like the religious maniac he most certainly was.
‘What is shame?’ rumbled Mongrel, glancing along the stretch of rubble-strewn alleyway towards the distant target: new and gleaming, it rose three storeys high and was just crying out for the five kilos of HighJ explosive they were about to deliver with, in the best tradition of covert warfare, extreme prejudice.
The Priest gestured with his silenced M27A carbine, the weapon black and glistening under the misty London rain. Mongrel glanced around, then frowned, hissing, ‘What hell you talking about?’
‘That!’ The Priest pointed, his rosary beads clacking against the bomb-blast debris.
‘The car?’
‘Yeah,’ said The Priest, his great sorrowful eyes filled with sadness, yearning and Great Pity. ‘Yea I say unto thee that I cannot comprehend how the infidels could wreak such hellfire destruction on such an honourable beast.’
‘The fucking Volvo?’ snapped Mongrel in disbelief.
‘It is a most noble vintage model.’ The Priest nodded to himself, turning his gaze back along the confined alleyway. Near the end, where street met rubble-cleared highway, fires burned, sending up columns of oily smoke, and they could pick out distant patrols of Nex.
Mongrel checked his watch. ‘Come on—is nearly time. You follow my lead, you see how is done proper, right lad?’
‘Yes, I will follow the true professional.’ The Priest smiled, his gold-flecked brown eyes blinking slowly, calmly, as he cocked the weapon in his huge hands and rolled smoothly—surprisingly so for such a large man—to his feet. His sandals flapped softly as he followed Mongrel down the alleyway. They paused behind a heap of glowing embers smouldering in a rusted metal drum. Their eyes scanned what lay ahead ...
London: one of the greatest capital cities in the world—once the home of Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Downing Street, the Tower of London, the Globe Theatre, Tower Bridge, the West End ... and now—
And now a pathetic shadow of its former self, a blasted, smashed, buckled ghost, a capital of destruction, a pulped and pulverised pile of debris. The Sentinel Tower—unharmed by the twenty-kiloton nuclear blast that had ravaged the city’s streets five years earlier—stood tall, black and gleaming, proud amid the rubble of something once mighty.
‘Ten seconds,’ said Mongrel, clenching his teeth in anticipation and rolling down his balaclava over his face. Broad hands clasped the Sterling sub-machine gun and he glanced past the repaired streets now alive with cars and military trucks; past the gleaming ever-open NEP premises—the Nex Production Plant where humans, genuine thoroughbred one-hundred-per-cent humans voluntarily went to relinquish their human status, went for voluntary Skein Blending, a joining of human and insect, genetic sacrilege, a two-fingered salute to God and Evolution alike.
Mongrel’s stare fixed on a ... signal.
The patrol groups of Nex—three Nex soldiers per group, with perhaps fifteen operations groups surrounding the vast perimeter of the NEP, a circular stone structure with a huge steel and glass dome rising to a height of three storeys—heard the crack of concussion, followed by a massive boom as a nearby building shook and instantly turned into a raging inferno.
Mongrel glanced right as a FukTruk, a heavy battered sixteen-wheeler, veered towards
him and halted with squealing brakes and a hiss of hydraulics. He climbed up the rope ladder slung against the canvas of the truck, then knelt, watching carefully as the Nex sprinted towards the NEP perimeter where the rattle of machine guns sounded. The Nex returned fire, taking up their positions behind stone pillars, aiming their Steyr TMPs with steady practised hands and the efficient eyes of trained killers ...
Mongrel dragged the tube from his back and flicked down the attached bipod. He quickly attached an ECube to the side of the dark green weapon and then dropped his canvas pack, lifting out a long heavy canister. He handled it with the sort of delicate care he usually reserved for a pint of beer, a woman’s clitoris, or—in this case—five kilos of powerful explosive.
The ECube clicked and hummed.
Mongrel, sweat soaking his balaclava despite the chill, licked at his salted lips and wished vehemently that he was in the pub. The machine-gun fire was blasting in bursts across the road. The traffic had now vanished, leaving only stragglers who had either panicked or been immobilised by stray bullets. Mongrel waited, watching in horror as a stream of spinning metal cut a diagonal line across the canvas back of the truck on which he perched, stopping at his boots.
‘Ne pizdi! Son of bitch!’
The ECube blipped; Mongrel felt the tube shift in his hands as digital targeting motors altered the angles of elevation. Mongrel dropped the long HighJ canister into the launch tube, ducking his head as a fiery backwash scorched his eyelashes and the bomb soared out over the street and the battling Nex.
Mongrel was moving even before the bomb struck. He clambered down the ladder with the elegance of a baboon, all knuckles and knees, and was sprinting with The Priest close behind him even as the HighJ connected violently with the hub of the Nex Production Plant.
Several Nex saw the rapid trajectory of the bomb.
But by then, it was too late.
The production plant disintegrated in a ball of glowing purple, a sudden uprush of noise and fire and screaming, twisting melting lengths of steel. Chunks of masonry scythed across the surrounding streets, punching men and Nex from their feet, demolishing whole buildings and delivering the maximum in hard-core destruction ...
It began to rain stone, concrete and flaming lengths of alloy-stapled timbers as a column of blackened smoke poured into the sky. Cars and trucks were picked up, crushed and twisted like putty into lumps of tortured steel.
Nex were melted in a glowing instant, merging with their guns where they stood. A harsh chemical stink drifted through the streets.
Mongrel stumbled to a halt at the end of the alleyway with The Priest beside him. They were soon joined by another eight grim-looking Spiral operatives. Their detonation mission had been successful. Now all they had to do was get to the next EP for the GRID ... alive.
‘Anybody tag signs of pursuit?’
The ops shook their heads, clasping their sub-machine guns. A woman rounded the corner and opened her mouth in sudden shock at the startling vision of guns and balaclavas. Then she turned and ran. Her heels clacked off down the rubble-strewn pavement as The Priest peered after her.
‘We’re clear.’
Distantly, sirens echoed. They could all smell smoke.
The Priest, glancing left and right, led the small fighting unit, the DemolSquad, across the now-deserted road and into another narrow street. Rain lay like a veil across the tarmac, the rubble and the dusty grime-smeared windows of shops. Some were still open and operating, some long closed and sporting smashed windows or boarded-up fronts, the graffiti-smeared planks nailed at different angles and daubed with the command NO ENTRY mantra.
The team moved, halted, checked their surroundings.
Mongrel inspected his gun’s magazine, and suddenly something seemed out of place. He turned, opening his mouth as he lifted his Sterling—
Bullets screamed from the darkened hole behind him, passing over his shoulder and thumping into the throat and head of a tall woman who was gazing off to her right, caving in her facial features and dropping her in an instant.
Mongrel and The Priest were already moving, whirling low with their weapons ready. The guns roared, emptying a stream of flying metal into an open shopfront as the two men dived in opposite directions. Two more Spiral operatives went down in the hail of exchanged fire and Mongrel felt a bullet carve a narrow groove across his shin, slicing through combats and flesh and chipping the bone. He hit the ground hard and rolled, the Sterling still bucking angrily in his gloved hands. He stopped shooting, breathing hard on dust and cordite, and glanced over at The Priest, who gave a nod. Mongrel pulled out a grenade, yanked free the pin with his few remaining teeth and allowed the cylinder to sail into the darkened depths of the shop.
And then they were running, the seven remaining Spiral agents pounding down the street, dodging behind the burned-out shell of a car—still hot from the previous night’s entertainment—then sprinting right into another alley as more bullets kicked up splinters of concrete at their heels
Mongrel slammed against a wall, panting. He dragged his balaclava off and changed magazines in his Sterling.
‘What flavour?’
‘White phos,’ muttered Mongrel.
‘Nasty.’ The Priest nodded.
‘Well, we not playing games here.’ Mongrel levelled his gun and fired off a full magazine blindly. Then he poked his head tentatively around the corner. What he saw made him frown.
She was standing in the centre of the street, legs slightly apart, arms hanging limp at her sides. Unlike other Nex, her pale oval face was uncovered, revealing a gentle pale beauty. Her hair was dark, spiked by the light fall of filthy rain. Her eyes glowed copper and were staring at him.
Mongrel shivered, for a moment locked to that penetrating gaze.
Swiftly, he reloaded and fired another burst. The female Nex looked down, almost in disgust, as the bullets did nothing but rattle the gravel at her feet. And then Mongrel watched the tide of heavily armed dark-clad Nex warriors silently fill the street behind her, moving with athletic grace in a perfect economy of action. He watched the columns of military Pigs and FukTruks creep forward, rumbling.
‘An army! A whole fucking army!’
‘I think we should leave. Now!’ hissed The Priest.
They set off, cutting first left, then right through a maze of narrow streets that were strangely free from damage. Archaic stone carvings stared down from steep vertical walls. The Priest called a sudden halt as he checked the ECube in his fist.
Gunshots rang out, bullets ricocheting off the corner of a building, and the Spiral operatives sprinted for cover. Then they crawled on their bellies to the corner of a street which The Priest indicated with a fist clasping his battered rosary beads.
‘They trying cut us off.’ hissed Mongrel.
‘Come on.’ They ran, heaving their exhausted bodies across the rubble-strewn thoroughfare, pounding past a group of tramps who were dressed in rags and sharing a bottle of clear liquid—obviously alcoholic—and staring around with vacant expressions on their ravaged faces. They stumbled along by a huge building and The Priest darted right, squeezing through a fallen archway and into a derelict hall with an uneven tile floor and a softly swaying chandelier—strangely intact and glowing in the weak grime-light spilling through the shadows.
Seconds later, tyres ground against stone as brakes locked in savage skids. Heavy-calibre rounds scythed through the tramps, ending their lives in a sudden hot hail of death. Their lone bottle, sole salvation from the misery of their lives, rolled across the ground and shattered into glinting shards.
‘The buggers,’ growled Mongrel. ‘They’ve fucking cut us off!’
The Priest put his hands together. ‘It is at times like this that we need to pray, my brothers.’
‘Pray?’ screamed Mongrel. ‘What, for a fucking miracle? The only fucking miracle here is I don’t put bullet in your dumb religious-maniac skull!’
The Priest’s eyes suddenly glinted, and he hoisted
his weapon. He took a deep breath and smiled. ‘Have faith, my son,’ he said. ‘For I have prayed for deliverance ... to the Lord! Yea, also to Simmo and his TankSquads. They have seen the light of my ECube—and should be here shortly.’
‘That svoloch jailbird had better hurry,’ muttered Mongrel. ‘Or we forget battle with Nex and I fucking kill you myself!’
‘Be calm, my son,’ The Priest soothed. ‘The Lord will protect us. The Lord will guide us. The Lord will find us sanctuary and deliver us, yea, even from utmost evil.’
Outside, the whole world seemed to rumble suddenly as something squeezed down the streets with squeals of steel torturing stone. The walls of the building vibrated, sending chunks of plaster toppling from far above, along with a shower of dust. The chandelier began to jiggle, making tiny tinkling sounds.
The Spiral ops looked nervously at one another.
‘What... fuck ... is that?’ hissed Mongrel.
But before anybody could speak, his question was answered—more abruptly and violently than the grizzled soldier had anticipated. The front wall of the building disintegrated as a mammoth twin-barrelled tank thundered through the ancient stonework, sending a shower of broken stone blocks into the chamber. With tracks squealing, the tank heaved itself forward in stop-start surges, grinding stone to powder, and broke free to spin in an arc through the room, its massive guns pointing at the Spiral operatives—who through instinct and pure reflex had opened fire with automatic weapons ...
Through the hole in the wall sprinted a squad of Nex, Steyr TMPs in gloved hands, cold copper-eyed stares sweeping the shattered area for their enemy. Sub-machine guns yammered in their steady grips.
Mongrel and The Priest scrambled frantically back towards the stairs. Bullets cut chunks from the tiles and plaster ahead of them. Yelling, they ran for the rotten, crumbling staircase as the tank, with a whirr of motors and clouds of LVA fumes belching into the confined interior, rotated its huge twin-gun turret.