Silicon Uprising

by Conor McCarthy

  A third pair of headlights appeared. Another gray SUV. “That’s unusual,” Jason said. The first had disappeared behind Zarather’s wall.

  “Huh? You think that doesn’t happen?” Brad said.

  “No, three cars at this hour.”

  White light swept onto the front garden. The tree canopies glowed.

  Jason fled from the window while shouting at Brad. “Incoming! We have to bail. Kill the light!”

  Six

  JASON STOOD ANCHORED to the spot while he recalled the details of the secret hatch. Brad nearly upturned the chair as he scrambled to hit the light switch. Darkness descended.

  “There’s not enough cover for us to run for the wall,” Brad said. “If we could get over it at all.”

  “And then,” Jason said, “getting the car here unseen could be a problem.”

  “Our best bet is the hidden door,” Brad said. “We hide for a day—two if necessary.”

  “Hell of a risk,” Jason said.

  “They’re coming,” Brad said. “Where to?”

  “Ground floor,” Jason said, and took off running with Brad close behind. “At the back somewhere.”

  At the bottom of the stairs, headlights streamed through the windows, and they heard the brief squeak of a tire stopping abruptly. They ran for the back as fast as possible while trying to step quietly.

  Jason found his way to the kitchen, and at the rear he chose on impulse to make a right turn and charge down the corridor. While sprinting past a closed door on the left, he made a quick inspection of it.

  The edge of a tiled floor was visible at the bottom.

  He skidded to a halt and Brad nearly bowled him over. “This is it,” Jason said as he opened the door.

  A large commercial washing machine and dryer sat against the right wall, and an ironing board and two large, spotless sinks were on the left.

  Jason handed the laptop to Brad and swung the spigot of the left sink until it clanged into the wall. Then he moved the right spigot into the same position, swung the left until it was aligned with the plug hole, then moved the right to the wall on its opposite side.

  He laughed, from nerves more than anything else. “Best secret switch ever.”

  “Pulling the right book off the shelf is so old hat,” Brad replied.

  Jason turned on the left cold tap, counted to three, turned on the right tap, and shut them both off at once.

  A hatch opened behind the ironing board. Brad dropped down to inspect it.

  “It’s seamless,” Brad said. “If they don’t know about it—”

  The walls shook as the front door was rammed open.

  Jason grabbed the ironing board and swung it out of the way as quietly as possible. He figured the sound of boots hitting the tiles inside the front door would smother the noise.

  Brad slapped the laptop into Jason’s arms and pointed to the hatchway. “In.”

  Jason crawled through. Brad followed as a loud male voice resonated throughout the ground level of the mansion.

  “You three upstairs. Daniels—living room. Smith—study. Butthead—kitchen.”

  “Did he call one of his men ‘Butthead’?” Jason whispered.

  “Yep,” Brad replied. He reached out from the secret passage, grabbed hold of the ironing board legs, and, as fast as he dared, moved it back against the wall.

  As he pulled it the last inch, one of the feet gripped enough to send a rattling vibration up through the frame.

  Brad cringed and muttered under his breath, “Arrgh, you fucking bastard.”

  He swung the hatch closed and made sure it was snugly in place.

  They stood at the top of bare concrete stairs—a stark contrast to the opulent interior of the mansion.

  “So you think it’s a safe room?” Brad said.

  “Don’t know. Probably. Think they heard?”

  “There are so many of ’em that maybe each thought it was one of the others. Fingers crossed.”

  They walked down the stairs to a corridor that turned right and headed away from the rear of the house.

  They walked swiftly for about fifty yards until the passage made a right-angled diversion five feet to the left, before heading again in the original direction.

  Jason said, “Aha, clever. You get past this and anyone following can’t shoot at you.”

  “A relic of interesting times,” Brad said. “Makes me doubt there’s a safe room down here. It’s an escape tunnel.”

  Another fifty yards and they reached a steel door. Brad depressed the metal lever to unlatch it. He pushed the door but it hardly moved. It was made of half-inch steel plate.

  He shoved hard and set it swinging outward on well-greased hinges.

  An identical door sat a few yards further on. The pair of them occupied the small room as Brad shut the first door, locked the latch with a heavy pin that hung on a chain, and drove three other bolts home.

  “They’ll need explosives to get through,” Jason said. “Two doors will slow them down a bit.”

  Brad worked on opening the second door. “There should be transport. What’s the point if there’s no transport?” He heaved the steel panel open, stopped in the entrance, looked up, and said, “Holy shit.”

  “What?” Jason said. He stepped forward and looked over Brad’s shoulder. The dark gray bullet-shaped nose of a rocket protruded above floor level.

  “In,” he said, and pushed Brad through onto a suspended steel walkway. Jason leaned over the side railing. It was at least thirty feet down.

  They were in a silo, but not for a missile. “I’ve heard rumors of these,” Jason said. “Escape rocket. Made from a surplus solid-fueled booster rocket for space launches. Some were converted into these for the superrich.”

  “Good way to get far from here if there’d actually been a revolution or a mass raid of this suburb,” Brad said. “You could also hole up in here during a home invasion. Who wants to blast off in a rocket if you don’t need to?”

  “Places like this had hard-core armed guards in those days. Ordinary raiders stayed away.”

  “Nice job if you could get it. Live here and shoot at scumbags who cross the boundary.”

  Jason laughed. “You’d like that.”

  “Boring,” Brad replied. He smiled. “Maybe I’d do it for one night if raiders were sure to show.”

  “Where are the video screens?” Jason said. “The house must have cameras everywhere.”

  Brad strode to the capsule’s hatch, turned the small handle nestled in a recess, and opened it to reveal a neat, functional interior. Four seats were bolted to the floor two abreast, facing each other. Light gray paint covered the bland walls.

  He stepped inside and sat on the far left. Jason followed and sat diagonally across from him. Sealed airtight, the space had accumulated a slight chemical odor from the paint and seats, which featured a layer of hard crushable foam molded to roughly fit a backside.

  Jason rapped his knuckles on the one beside his. “Not for comfort. It protects your ass in a hard landing.”

  Beside his seat, Brad found a display panel that swung out on an arm to face him. He read the displayed message out loud. “‘Diagnostic checklist complete. Ready for launch.’”

  Jason swung out his panel. “I guess unlocking the hidden door triggered the system boot.” He pressed a button on the touchscreen marked “Video.”

  A live feed took over the whole screen. Jason watched in horror.

  A man planted a charge on the secret hatch. He wore a black uniform and body armor. His upper arm carried an insignia Jason had never seen before. A right-angled letter C made from three parallel lines, each with a dot at both ends like a track on a circuit board. A mirror-image C to the left of it completed the design.

  “Armed goons,” Jason said. “Not police. Some kind of secret force, like old-school secret police? We’re so screwed.”

  “They aren’t here to ask about a car door. If they arrest us, somehow I doubt we’ll be making any phone
calls.”

  “Shot discreetly in a basement.”

  “Don’t say that,” Brad said, and turned his panel toward Jason. It displayed a navigation map. “We’re getting the hell out of here. Two special places are marked. One in the middle of a forest, another in open country. No towns nearby.”

  A distant bang thundered through the open capsule door. Jason’s camera display went blank. “Fuck,” he said, and switched to the tunnel view.

  Along it ran men carrying MP5 submachine guns.

  “They’re going to get in,” Jason said. “Soon. I hope this thing is properly maintained.” He leapt from the capsule and ran to close the inner steel silo door.

  “The house is immaculate,” Brad shouted after him. “Everything in its proper place.” He slapped the side of his seat. “This will work.”

  Jason returned to the capsule and shut the hatch behind him. Brad pointed at the map. “Zarather must have something at these locations. Transport probably. But they could be compromised.”

  “I doubt it,” Jason replied. “We didn’t even know what was in here.”

  “They found the hidden door leading here.”

  “Maybe because you made a noise with the ironing board. I bet only Zarather himself knows what’s in that navigation system. And the people who prepared those landing sites probably didn’t know who it was for.”

  A muffled crack came from outside the capsule, followed by a clang, and the steel walkway hummed with vibration.

  “Shaped charges,” Jason said. “They’ve blown the first door off its hinges.”

  “Fuck,” Brad said. He pointed at the map. “Look, here’s my old hometown. The train goes through every half hour and slows here approaching the station. We land in this field, jump on a freight car, get far away, and then have a friend of mine pick us up.”

  “And if this thing’s arrival is obvious enough that half the town posts videos? It looks like stealth technology, but I could be wrong. And the landing itself may be anything but stealthy.”

  “Okay, we make it look like we took the train, but we go through the forest instead. A few hours’ hard hiking and my friend gets us on the other side.”

  “Zarather has this all planned out. Those places must have transport. Do you trust him, or do we run across country, without water or wheels, with the goons knowing the landing site we ran from?”

  “Okay.” Brad pressed his finger onto a marker. “This is nearest to the guy we need to see. Strap in!”

  The computer voiced a countdown immediately. “Launch in five . . .”

  “Five seconds. Shit!” Jason said as he fumbled with the four-point harness.

  The silo ceiling swung up and out of the way, sending clumps of soil bouncing off the capsule.

  He was still fastening the shoulder straps when the silo door was blown off its hinges and fell onto the walkway with a loud clang. As the thin black smoke cleared, the armed men appeared farther along the corridor and rushed toward the capsule.

  Smoke and then flames blasted upward outside the capsule, hiding their view of the gunmen. The capsule vibrated and the rocket motor roared so loud that Brad’s mouth seemed to move silently as he said something.

  Two sharp whacks came from the hatch, as if somebody had flung rocks at it. They were faint but audible over the din.

  Jason ignored the noises and watched the screen as flames blew away a goon who had leveled his gun at the capsule.

  The video feed went blank.

  The g-force pressed him down into the seat. Fire blasted upward past the four small round windows as the exhaust from below rushed to escape the silo.

  Seconds later the flames disappeared to reveal the rear of Zarather’s mansion bathed in a yellow glow. As the mansion plummeted out of view below, fire spewed from a ground-floor window.

  “Must have sucked to be in that corridor with both doors open,” Jason said.

  “Fuck them,” Brad said. His distressed voice drew Jason’s attention immediately. Brad held his chest and blood soaked his shirt.

  “Shit,” Jason said. His fingers hung suspended in front of the screen while he tried to figure out what to do. “I have to change the destination to someplace with a hospital.”

  Brad tilted his head back and looked up. “No. We go. And you have another problem.” His eyes turned toward the hatch.

  Jason checked it. Two bullet holes. A wisp of fog began to form as air streamed out through them.

  A loud computerized voice blared out, “Cabin pressure. Apply emergency patch.” It repeated over and over.

  Frantically Jason searched around his seat. He opened a small compartment on the side, emblazoned with the word “Emergency” in red. Among the objects arranged neatly within, he found round patches made of some tough gel-like material.

  It seemed like a good bet, so he slapped one on a hole. It held and stopped the leak. After sealing the other hole, he focused again on Brad.

  With blood on his lips, Brad spoke again. “So it seems something fishy is going on. Get them for me, will you?”

  The horror of the question’s implication kept Jason silent for moment. He wanted to argue, but it seemed like the wrong time.

  “I will. I’ll get them.”

  “No regrets coming. Had to do it. If I—”

  He coughed blood into his hand, then looked at it vacantly before wiping it on his chest. He found a burst of strength to say forcefully, “If I’d said no to something like this, I’d have lived a life of boring mediocrity.”

  His head rested back against the seat and he fell silent. His chest still rose and fell, but he seemed to struggle each time.

  Jason looked out the window with an irrational hope of finding salvation out there. A vast patchwork of cities and highways glowed in the darkness below. Clouds from weather systems appeared as vast dark holes.

  The rocket’s course gradually curved over until it was horizontal at the edge of space. The booster exhausted its fuel and the g-force pressing Jason into the seat disappeared, replaced by the stomach-lurching feeling of falling. At their supersonic speed, the thin air outside added a slight braking force. The laptop, with Jason’s hands resting on it, rose up off his lap until he pressed it back down.

  Explosive bolts separated the capsule from the booster with a sharp crack, sending vibration up through his feet. A set of small rocket motors fired beneath them, and the capsule pivoted onto a new heading. It made sense, as the capsule would be hard to detect with radar after separation. They needed to change direction to be unpredictable.

  The capsule continued pitching over until they descended at an angle far steeper than that of a landing airliner. Then the motors fired again, rotating the capsule. The landscape outside spun from nearly upside-down until their backsides were heading for the ground. Thrust from the opposite side halted the spin and shut off.

  Only the slight braking effect from air resistance pressed Jason into his seat. The near-zero gravity evoked his dreams of space flight and the planned Mars mission. He was torn between elation at the experience and horror at the plight of his best friend a few feet away.

  After they had flown a thousand miles in under fifteen minutes, the capsule descended into ever-thicker air and the roar of wind rose. The lights outside appeared to rush upward much faster than before. The capsule was getting low. Soon it would brake or the goons would find their splattered remains among the wreckage.

  It deployed a drogue parachute. Immediately he felt a little deceleration. He looked for a reaction from Brad. None came.

  They descended toward a vast dark patch in the landscape. The safety of an uninhabited space.

  A clunk came from above as the main parachutes were released. After a few seconds of deceleration, the capsule settled into a quiet descent. Dark hills rose into view, sweeping blackness across the lights near the horizon.

  A loud hissing came from below, then the capsule planted onto the ground. The touchdown was heavier than an airliner landing, but not too h
eavy. Then came silence.

  Jason looked to Brad. “We’re down.” But Brad’s eyes were half open, looking at nothing.

  Did he have a pulse? Jason balked at the thought of checking it and shouted Brad’s name. No response. He fumbled for his harness latch and released it, then scrambled over to search for Brad’s pulse on his neck.

  Nothing.

  He seized the hatch lever, opened it, and climbed out onto the now-deflated airbags that had cushioned their landing. He spun on one foot and kicked the vessel. “You fucking bastard, giving me your goddamned house key in a trash can. What the fuck is all this? Some bullshit elitist power game? I’ll find you and throw you down your fucking rocket silo. Behind what’s left of your house!”

  Jason’s chest heaved air in and out of his lungs through his flared nostrils. He sucked in a deep breath and held it. Gradually he let go of it and calm returned. As he looked up at the sky, only the gentle rhythm of his breathing disturbed the wisp of a breeze and the faint rustle of grass. Far from light pollution, the stars shined brightly between drifting cloud banks. His eyes settled on the brightest. If he’d lived in an earlier age, maybe he’d have known its name.

  A little moonlight filtering through high clouds illuminated low ridges and hills that surrounded their location. The land appeared treeless, with grass below knee height. No lights appeared anywhere. No sign of transport either.

  Jason walked in a slow circle around the capsule, surveying the landscape, hoping for Zarather’s plan to show itself. His memory took him back to the mansion entrance. An image of the floor tile rising.

  “Hidden things that open and shut,” he said to no one.

  Jason stepped inside the capsule and found what looked like an oversized garage remote latched securely to the side wall. In the frenzy to blast off, it had remained invisible and irrelevant to him. He took it outside and held it above his head.

  “This had better be what I think it is.”

  He pressed the button.

  A hundred yards away, the top of a steel cage appeared, rising out of the ground, illuminated by faint white light.

  “Get the hell out of here,” Jason said.

  The top of a white SUV rose into view behind the bars of the cage. When it stopped, it sat there with the wheels at ground level.