Warhead

by Andy Remic

  Jam cannoned into the slope in the complete darkness, pain crashing through him as he struck its surface. Curled up tight, he rolled down the slope with the crushed castle chasing him into the darkness—

  I will be buried alive once more, he thought.

  The stone slope was steep and jagged. Jam tumbled down it helplessly. Behind him, the avalanche roared in pursuit. Finally he struck a ledge and became airborne—uncurling, he stretched in flight, then cannoned into a wall and fell to the ground, stunned, mouth open and drooling blood and saliva, all breath hammered from his frame.

  The roaring sound followed him. Jam waited for the castle to crush him and stamp out his life. But it never happened. There was no impact. And gradually the noise subsided and stone dust filled the air, choking Jam who covered his battered face with his arms in a feeble attempt to filter it out.

  Rolling onto his armoured knees, he began to crawl until he was away from the immediate cloud of choking dust. He felt water pooled in a hollow beneath him. He sank to his belly and lay, body heaving as he lapped at the stale, strange-tasting water like a dog. Then he sank down, his face pressing into the slow-moving inch-deep stream, and closed his eyes. A sleep of exhaustion overcame him and it felt as if it would last a thousand years. But as he sank into oblivion he realised one thing: somewhere the stream would lead from under the mountain ... would lead outside and to freedom ...

  let us () out

  fucking () prisoners () make us free

  make() us free

  we see you () see you

  we see your () pain () we take it

  () take your pain

  welcome us like mother and father and brood ()()() in mind allow us free we need free we cannot lie trapped () in world () bright world bright sky metal () taste metal taste water feel good feel need need to move need to live need to kill.

  There came tiny clicks, like the scraping of cockroach chitin. Jam’s eyes opened in the darkness which slowly brightened to mere gloom. It had been five years, five long years—and yet the entombment seemed like only yesterday. A nightmare nestling in his skull and taking every opportunity to break free.

  He breathed, moving fluidly to a seated position, and slowly became aware of the vibrations around him: the howl of engines, the thumping of rotors, the sound of voices in the cockpit. Jam looked to the right, triangular head gleaming black and oiled, slitted copper eyes glancing out over the mountains and the snow.

  ‘I am here,’ came the rumble of his alien ScorpNex voice.

  Carter was half asleep, seated beside the burner. To one side he could hear Mongrel and The Priest discussing the location of the SP_1 Plot on the south-west coast of Greenland where they could pick up a fast boat—a Viper ZX—and head out into the North Atlantic to the Submarine Graveyard. He could see Roxi through his drooping eyelids, playing with Joe beside another burner which cast its eerie glow over them. Carter watched them for a while, feeling warm inside: Roxi and Joe had bonded fine, and this could only bode well for the future. If, indeed, any of them had a future ...

  A cool breeze blew through the cavern. Carter glanced up and idly watched an enormous figure lumber in. He blinked, suddenly fully awake as the hackles rose on the back of his neck in a primal reaction. Then he stood and moved slowly across the rocky floor. He halted, a few feet away from Jam.

  They stared at one another for a long time.

  Around them came the clicks of weapons being cocked. Jam’s physical appearance did nothing to soothe the fears of the men and women present. He was Nex, through and through. But, worse, he looked—inevitably—like what he was: a ScorpNex—a deadly, violent rarity.

  Sonia J was dressed now in fresh black combats and a thick grey jumper; her hair swept under a tight thermal hat but she was shivering. She stood beside Jam, her gaze moving over to Carter and her head tilting as she tried to read his stance.

  ‘How you doing, fucker?’ said Carter, eventually.

  Jam gave a deep-throated chuckle and moved closer, body swaying, head dropping until it was only inches from Carter’s face. ‘I am not dead yet,’ he said.

  Carter reached out, hand pausing for a moment in mid-air before gently descending to touch Jam’s thick black armoured skin. His fingers left tiny smears in the oiled surface as they moved down the side of his friend’s head and their gazes locked. ‘Does it hurt?’

  ‘Sometimes, Carter. Sometimes. You look well.’

  Carter withdrew his hand, and shuddered involuntarily. ‘I wish I could say the same for you. I ... I need to thank you. For that moment, in Austria, on the battlements.’

  ‘You would have done the same for me, if you could have,’ said Jam, his twisted voice thick with emotion.

  Mongrel stumbled in, holding two huge mugs of steaming tea. He glanced around, then focused on Carter and the huge ScorpNex figure of Jam. Without breaking stride, without flinching, he marched up to them, handed Carter a mug, looked Jam up and down, then peered into the slitted copper eyes and said, ‘Welcome back, dickhead. We thought you’d never fucking arrive. You want a cuppa?’

  Carter laughed then, and some unseen tension, some ghost of ancient violence was exorcised. Jam settled down onto the stone floor.

  ‘I will try my best to drink it,’ said Jam, his words slow and slurred. ‘After all your sweet tea is a legend throughout the ranks of Spiral. I believe one squaddie referred to it as the tar-shit of the devil?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, well—you still have six sugars? Of course you do. I see your change into Nex monster not done anything for your fat fucking pot-belly.’

  Jam stared at Mongrel’s own huge expanse of overhanging gut. ‘My pot-belly?’ he growled.

  Mongrel patted his own girth with a grin. ‘Hey, I just say you were fat—I not say nothing about my own wobbling stomach. Now, you want this tar-shit tea, or what?’

  It was thirty minutes later. The Priest, and the Spiral and REBS members present, had all been briefed and were ready to set off from their hideout in the Scottish mountains.

  ‘And the Lord will guide us, my friends,’ intoned The Priest to his captive audience. ‘He will guide us in our search for the ultimate truth, for collective wisdom, and in the final triumphant bringing down of the infidels.’

  Mongrel nudged Carter. ‘Is he on drugs, you think?’

  ‘He might be mad,’ said Carter, ‘but he gets the fucking job done, I’ll have to hand it to him. No other fucker could organise the DemolSquads and REBS in such a short time. He has, shall we say, a God-given talent.’

  Five minutes later, Carter was kneeling on the ground beside his son, Joseph. The boy was hugging his father tightly, tears on his cheeks, and Carter looked up into the face of Roxi who stood only a few feet to one side, a gentle smile on her lips. ‘Roxi will look after you.’

  ‘I know,’ said Joe, his voice hardly more than a whisper. ‘Please be careful, daddy. The Nex are bad people. The Nex will try to shoot you! It frightens me.’

  ‘You just look after yourself—and I want you to do me a favour.’

  ‘Yes?’ Red-rimmed eyes stared into Carter’s own. The gaze melted his bitterness.

  ‘I want you to look after Roxi. I want you to make sure she comes to no harm. She is a very great friend of mine ... can you do this for me? Can you protect her?’

  Joe puffed out his chest. ‘I will look after her,’ he said proudly, glancing over at the Spiral woman and smiling broadly. ‘Where will we go, Roxi? Shall we stay here?’

  ‘No, we will go somewhere warmer,’ said Roxi softly. She moved over and placed her hand against Joe’s soft hair. ‘Come on, up you get. Your father has a job to do.’

  Joe nodded and stood up. Carter gave him one final kiss. Then he glanced at Roxi and a silent understanding passed between them.

  Look after him if I don’t return. It didn’t need to be spoken out loud.

  Carter hoisted his pack, and with a grumbling Mongrel in tow moved towards the cavern’s exit. Jam, Sonia J, Baze and Oz had already depa
rted, heading for the K-Labs and a meeting with the white-coats who had created EDEN.

  ‘Wait.’ Carter halted, just beside the entrance to the short tunnel. A freezing wind poured in, filled with needles of ice. Carter turned as Roxi fell into his arms and looked up into his eyes.

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ groaned Mongrel. ‘This not time for getting all horny, people! We on mission! Come on, get tongues down throats and out again so we can head out, by God!’

  Carter and Roxi grinned at one another, then kissed. ‘You told Joe you would be careful.’

  Carter nodded, and he could see her eyes searching his face. His hand lifted, fingers stroking the soft skin of her cheek. ‘I’m coming back, Rox. Believe me, I have a lot to live for.’

  ‘Hey, Mongrel?’

  ‘Hn?’

  ‘You look after Carter, you hear? If you come back without him then you’ll have me to answer to.’

  Mongrel grunted something rude, and wandered out into the cold fresh night air. Roxi kissed Carter again, a full long kiss. ‘Another life, remember?’ she said, voice husky, scent strong.

  ‘I hear you.’ He turned her around, then slapped her backside. ‘Go on, you mischievous minx. Get in there and get cooking.’

  ‘Get cook— Now, you wait one minute ...’

  But Carter was gone. Roxi stared at the exit for a full minute, the cold mountain breeze rustling through her dark hair. Then Joe nestled against her side and she dropped to a crouch beside him. ‘Come on, let’s get our stuff together, little man. We’re out of here.’

  The Comanche hammered through the darkness, through the heart of the storm. It fell from the mountains and within minutes was howling low over the Atlantic, which rolled dark and restless beneath it.

  The cockpit of the Comanche was cosy, a cocoon of warmth. Mongrel, ensconced in his HIDSS, was making little conversation as he concentrated on piloting the war machine through the blizzard.

  Carter leaned back, eyes half closed. His mind whirled with memories of recent events, but he forced himself into a state of calmness. Mission, he thought. Find Justus—old Justus, a gun-runner and trader in information from back in Kenya during Carter’s Spiral days. Find Justus—if he still lived—and then locate the programmers who had helped to turn the dream of the EC Warhead into a reality ... and into a viable weapon that Spiral and the REBS could use against Durell. All in forty-eight hours.

  I just love a fair timescale, Carter thought bitterly.

  He dozed for a while. He dreamed of Natasha and Joe, playing together in the surf outside his new home in Cyprus; they would have been happy there together, he realised. They would have been content. A family.

  ‘You shouldn’t be so nostalgic,’ said Kade, his voice a hoarse whisper.

  ‘Hey, long time no mind-fucking,’ snapped Carter within the confines of his own skull. ‘What’s kept your nose out of the shit pie for so long?’

  ‘I’ve been busy. ‘

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Ducking and diving. A dark demon’s got to eat. You know how it is, Carter. ‘

  ‘I’m pretty sure I don’t.’

  Carter shook himself and drank a long soothing draught of water from his canteen before passing the black bottle forward for Mongrel. Mongrel slurped, losing half the precious liquid down his tattered grime-stained T-shirt. ‘Hey, is good that Spiral and REBS is all one big happy family, no? Just shame we on brink of an extermination.’ Mongrel turned sideways and flicked up his visor. His gaze fixed on Carter with concern. ‘But I just hope this mission not be wild-goose chase. If Justus dead, we well and truly fucked.’

  ‘From what The Priest was saying—and from our past intel—the Nex only take prisoners to the Submarine Graveyard for one purpose. Torture.’

  ‘Aye, lad, and a man can only last so long against that sort of abuse under the knife. They’ve had him for a week now ... a long time to survive without your balls. Mongrel only worry that if Justus still alive, what sort of shape we find him in?’

  ‘Let’s concentrate on our infiltration first. You got the SP_1 Plot coordinates locked?’

  ‘ETA one hour.’

  ‘Then let’s get this thing done, then.’

  The sky was blue and clear as Mongrel negotiated the rugged coastline to the south-west of Greenland. They flew over jagged brown mountain ranges through which fjords cut arcing sweeps, their waters a cold slate blue and peppered with majestic chunks of glacial ice. The Comanche thrummed over a tiny fishing village, with dirt roads and a simple grey-stone church. The bay was littered with compact fishing vessels and the few people who were out tending the colourful boats looked up, shading their eyes as the Comanche whined low overhead and banked,

  ‘ETA one minute.’

  ‘You’re getting good at this.’

  ‘Yeah,’ snapped Mongrel. ‘Was steep learning curve fighting Nex, that for damned sure.’

  ‘Where exactly is this SP_1 Plot?’

  ‘Down there, beside the Søndre Strømfjord; it give us easy access to Labrador Sea, and Submarine Graveyard beyond. Is most desolate. Carter should like this place.’

  ‘You trying to say I’m a hermit?’

  ‘Had crossed my mind, compadre.’

  The coastline was a desolate yet strangely beautiful rugged stretch of rocky ground dropping in steps towards the grey waters. Carter shivered, looking down from the warmth of the Comanche’s interior. The sight filled his veins with ice.

  Mongrel slowed their speed and the chopper banked again, coming in low over the fjord as armoured rotors whipped the calm waters into a frenzy. Then they carefully touched down beside a derelict cabin on the shores of the Strømfjord.

  The cockpit folded back, and Carter climbed down, stretching and shivering as the numbing cold hit him. Mongrel followed in his ragged T-shirt, breathing deeply, cheeks a rosy red.

  ‘Smell that, lad!’ he boomed, slotting a thirty-round magazine into his H&K MP5K. The modest sub-machine gun looked like a toy in his large rough hands. Across the fjord they could see several pure white gannets floating majestically on the cold current. The birds looked at ease, at one with their surroundings.

  ‘Come on, Mongrel. And get a jumper on or you’ll freeze to death out here.’

  ‘Ha! It take more than ice and wind and cold to kill this old war-dog!’

  Carter and Mongrel moved across the rocky ground towards the abandoned shell of the cabin. It had no roof, just bare stone walls, one of which had mostly crumbled into dereliction. Inside, there were the black scorch marks of previous fires on the rock floor and Carter crouched to examine them. The rocks were speckled with discoloured bird droppings; no fires had been lit there for some time.

  Mongrel grabbed their packs from the Comanche, and the two men set off on a short half-kilometre walk inland. Using his ECube, Mongrel located a ravine that dropped down through the rock. Shouldering packs and pulling zips up tight on their Berghaus fleece jackets, the two men started to descend a narrow trail. It dropped steeply, dangerously, into the incredibly constricted ravine and they both used gloved hands to steady their descent, reaching out to touch the smooth, crystal-veined walls as the steep rock reared above them. Gloom descended as the sides of the cleft blocked out the light.

  Claustrophobia loomed threateningly.

  ‘You been down here before?’ asked Carter.

  ‘Yeah. The Mongrel not like.’

  ‘You sure this is the entrance to the Sp_Plot?’

  ‘Would you forget descent like this?’

  They dropped perhaps three hundred feet on the narrow rocky pathway. At the base of the steep slope the two men hopped from a narrow ledge. Mongrel moved forward, located a steel doorway and integrated his ECube. The rock-coloured portal slid open and lights flickered dimly into life within the freezing, frost-layered interior of the cave that was revealed.

  Carter peered in. ‘Looks homely.’

  ‘It get worse,’ croaked Mongrel, shivering.

  They stepped in, boots tramp
ing over slivers of ice, and the portal closed behind them, locking them inside the mountains.

  It took the two Spiral agents ten minutes to gather thermals, extra weapons and ammunition, food supplies and UPTs—pressurisation tablets used when planning a deep-sea excursion. This particular Sp_Plot in Greenland was only rarely accessed, but it had been superbly stocked when Spiral was in its heyday. Now, with both men carrying two packs and dressed for Arctic exploration, Mongrel led Carter through a labyrinth of passageways carved through the rock to the dark shores of an underground lake.

  The sight took Carter’s breath away. There, under a few globes of dull yellow light, was a huge glass-black expanse of water measuring perhaps a kilometre across. As Carter’s breath steamed and his ears and nose tingling with cold, his boot kicked a tiny rock which bounced down to the shoreline. The sound echoed around the vast cavern, making both men jump, and ripples spread out across the previously perfectly still surface, destroying the illusion of slick gleaming glass.

  ‘If there are dinosaurs living in there, I pretty sure you woke them up now,’ muttered Mongrel disapprovingly, a frown carving contours down his rugged face.

  ‘Yeah—but what an incredible place!’

  ‘Not as incredible as the secrets she hold. Look!’

  Carter focused on the ten objects covered by tarpaulins at the water’s edge. He moved forward and grabbed the edge of one of the tarps, hauling the cover free from a Viper ZX.

  The Viper ZX was built by Kawasaki, a sleek black sea-craft whose hull was created from interleaving semi-morphic panels of Titanium-II. It could house three people in comfort inside its high-walled narrow hull, and sported a 380 bhp 3000cc four-stroke engine with QOHC and fully waterproof twin-line electronics. The Viper could travel in complete silence, using USD-tx Ultra Sonic Dispersers, and it sported direct-drive axial-flow jet pumps, twin three-blade impellers and quad 168mm jet-pump nozzles for powerful acceleration—even vertically. Which was where the Viper really surprised and delighted first-time users and made a liar out of any man referring to its sleek design merely as ‘speedboat’. At the touch of a button, the Kawasaki machine would slide panels in a dome above the occupants, realign control settings and effectively become a high-speed submarine. It could dive vertically to a depth of three kilometres, had advanced pressure-control mechanisms and used a variety of underwater sighting systems, combined with powerful hull-mounted STK rockets and an industrial green-beam Greeneye laser. This could easily slice through twelve-inch plate steel and could also double as a tactical weapon. The final touch of genius was the machine’s ability for a remote-control operation. Utilising a tiny black pad with an inbuilt LCD screen, the Viper could be piloted from a distance of five kilometres: useful for setting up decoys, or using the vehicle as an unmanned reconnaissance vehicle, or—drastically—a mobile bomb.