This Machine Kills

by Steve Liszka

  There had been so much unrest at the thought of sharing the same bed space as murderers, that Warchild decided it would be best if he took his men to one of the most remote buildings where they couldn’t upset the others. He quietly advised Taylor that it would probably be best if they kept an armed presence on the door, just in case some of them decided to take a wonder in the night to look for the women. It seemed that even when out of prison, these men could not be free.

  For Taylor, his biggest worry was that SecForce would launch a counter attack and try and take him and the other men out as they slept. He would have much rather used the element of surprise and stormed the City straight after leaving the centre, but then Doyle wouldn’t have been inside to do his job. He knew that as soon as they left the centre, Richardson would be in contact with SecForce headquarters warning them about what had taken place. They would have had a helicopter there to pick up Doyle within minutes. Milton would want to know if he had any information that could help thwart the resistance’s plans.

  Although there was still a risk, he thought it was highly unlikely that SecForce would risk sending their ground troops in to find them. He knew how much they detested risk-taking and the thought of a bloody engagement, with the loss of some of his own men would have been thoroughly unpalatable to Milton. It was far more realistic for them to send the drones in on bombing runs; targeting the buildings they thought may have been a temporary home to the centre’s escapees.

  This proved to be the case, and late that night they were awoken by the deafening sound of explosions taking place all around them. When the air was finally silent again, Taylor ventured outside to see that two of the buildings where the men had slept had been completely destroyed. Before the battle had even begun, they had already lost a significant portion of their army. In the morning, when the men gathered for their final briefing, a few more had vanished. The long night had sapped them of their bravery, leaving them to sneak back to the production centres or further out to whatever lay beyond.

  “They’ll see the dust cloud, long before they see us,” Taylor said when his throat had finally cleared.

  “It won’t matter, there’ll be nothing they can do to stop us. We’ve already beaten them.”

  Jacob spoke not like he was being arrogant, but that his words were fact.

  “We’ve got to get in first,” Taylor reminded him, “and that all depends on Doyle.”

  This was what had been bothering him most. They were relying on a number of factors that were far beyond his control. If SecForce had any doubts concerning Doyle’s loyalties, they would have promptly taken him in for questioning. If they’d not been convinced by his answers, it was likely that he may still be in their custody, making the plan doomed to failure from the start. If Rudy was aware of his return, Doyle would have an even more serious adversary looking for him, and although Taylor had faith in the boy, he was also fully aware what a ruthless bastard Rudy was. Either way he looked at it, and despite Jacob’s confidence, the whole thing relied, to a large degree, on luck.

  “What about you?” Taylor asked, “how did it feel for you?”

  “How did what feel?”

  “The night of the concert…when the uprising started. How did it feel, knowing what was about to happen?”

  There was a pause before Jacob spoke again; at first Taylor thought it was because he was preparing himself for the steady incline that now faced them, but it soon became evident that he had been trying to bring order to his words.

  “In a way, I’ve been lucky, history has been kind to me. At least in the Old-Town it has, I’m sure it’s different in the City… But here, people only remember the good things about Billy Nothing. They talk about how I pushed that SecForce officer off the stage and how I whipped the crowd into a frenzy. They even add their own embellishments, where I did things far more heroic than what actually took place.”

  Jacob’s breathing became heavier as his feet took on the hill.

  “But the truth,” he said, “that gets overlooked now that time has been able to change the facts, is that up until that night I had done nothing to help the Old-Town. The reason there were so few police at the concert is because they knew we were just a bunch of rich kids trying to get as much fame as possible. We weren’t really anarchists, we weren’t even punks for that matter. We were just fame hungry. We knew that the concert would make us so controversial, we’d be huge in no time, and that was all that mattered.”

  As the strain of the ascent began to tell on Jacob, Taylor took his arm and gently guided him forward.

  “You know the funny thing,” Jacob went on, “is that song; Reclaim the Streets, it wasn’t even ours. Our music company paid some burnt out pop star to write it. That’s how revolutionary we were.”

  “So what changed?”

  Jacob stopped for a moment to catch his breath.

  “As is so often the case,” he said, “a woman came along. It was her who made me see what really mattered.”

  “Who was she?” Taylor asked.

  Jacob started walking again, “Someone I met at an after-party a few weeks before… From the first moment I saw her, I was besotted. You know what the first thing she said to me was? That I was a fake, and an embarrassment to punks everywhere. When she said that I knew I had to have her… She woke me up, made me realise that I could make a difference if I wanted. Without her, the Uprisings would have never happened. It’s her the people in the Old-Town should be talking about, not me.”

  “Sounds a bit like us,” Taylor said, giving Jacob a gentle push to get him walking again, “you’re the brains of the outfit but it’s me who they think is in charge.”

  Jacob shook his head, “No this is different, it was you who got us into the production centre, you who beat Warchild and got the prisoners to help us. It’s your plan that will get us into the City. This is down to you, not me.”

  They walked on, all the while Jacob struggling to reach the near-approaching brow of the hill.

  “What happened to her?”

  A few long seconds went by before Jacob found the breath to answer, “She died,” he gasped, exhausted by the effort, “just one of the many victims of the Uprising.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Taylor answered. He hoped it had been sincere, but after what had happened in the past few days, he wasn’t sure how his words sounded anymore.

  “Do you still miss her?” he asked.

  “Every day,” Jacob said, then stopped talking as the gradient flattened out.

  At the top of the hill they were able to look ahead and see the grey concrete wall that wrapped itself around the shining lights of the City.

  Chapter 29

  Taylor checked his watch; it was seven fifty-five. Moving at Jacob’s geriatric pace, it had taken them another half an hour to get to the ridge of land they would shelter behind until the attack commenced. In the short space of time, darkness had rapidly descended on them. Spotlights on the ground shone up on the wall, making it look even more imposing than it did in the light of day. It reminded him of a castle his father had taken him to as a child, the lights glaring up on it serving to emphasise just how impenetrable the stone fortress was.

  The wall’s very existence mocked the meagre perimeter fence that stood in front of it. A handful of troopers were located at the fence’s checkpoint and beyond that Taylor was able to peer through the wall’s open steel doors, allowing him the merest glimpse into the City. He could make out some bright lights from inside and the vague movement of people gathered closely together, but little else.

  Looking at how small and conquerable this flimsy construction was, it made him wonder why the people of the Old-Town had regarded it as any sort of barrier to get into the City at all. With enough of them, they could have pulled the fence down with their bare hands. He again felt angry at Jacob for not launching his attack when the wall had only been an embryonic idea in Freddie Milton’s head.

  On the top of the wall and silhouetted by t
he spotlights, sentries could be seen pacing back and forth.

  Warchild looked up and cast a concerned glance over them, “You reckon they’re good enough to hit us from that distance.”

  “Oh yeah,” Taylor answered without missing a beat, “they may not be up to the standards you were used to in the army, but I’m pretty they could take a man’s head clean off from where they’re standing.”

  Warchild’s body sunk even closer to the sun-hardened earth,

  “Then perhaps it’s a good idea they don’t see us.”

  “Doesn’t matter now,” Taylor answered, “they’re not going to risk antagonising us by taking pot-shots. Milton’s plan is for the doors to close at eight o’clock on the button. If he was forced to do it any earlier he’d regard the whole thing as a failure. I know how he thinks.”

  “Maybe,” Warchild countered, “or perhaps he could just send all his troops out to fuck us up.”

  Taylor turned to his new ally, “Would you bother doing that, when you could just wait a few minutes and then shut the doors for good?”

  Warchild shrugged his massive shoulders, “When you put it that way I suppose not, but then again I ain’t in the position to make those sort of decisions.”

  “Really?” Taylor enquired, “Because we were planning to make you the new Mayor once we’re in.”

  Warchild nodded to himself, “Yeah, I think I like the sound of that. What’s the pay like?”

  Taylor patted him on the shoulder, “We’ll discuss it later.”

  He was interrupted by the sounds of impatient movement along the line; the men were getting restless. He checked his watch again; it was seven fifty-eight. Taylor turned his attention to Jacob who lay on the other side of him, seemingly unaware of what was about to take place.

  “We need to tell them to stay down. If they go too early, they’ll ruin everything.”

  Jacob nodded, then beckoned two of his men over to him. After a few hushed words, they went in opposite directions along the crooked line. Keeping as low as possible, they stopped every few metres or so to pass Jacob’s instructions to the hundreds of newly recruited soldiers they came in contact with.

  “You still think this is going to work?” Taylor said, careful not to let anyone else overhear his words.

  “Of course,” was the curt response, “nothing’s changed.”

  He leant closer in, the volume of his speech dropping further, “You do know a lot of them aren’t going to make it into the City?”

  “Yes I do,” Jacob answered, “and so do they. They’re not stupid, they know why they’re doing this and they know the risks involved. They’re here because they’ve decided what we’re doing is worth dying for.”

  Taylor heard himself swallowing hard, “In that case, we better not fuck it up.”

  The conversation was interrupted by the sound of raised shouts and cheers coming from the crowds inside the City.

  “It’s nearly time,” he said to no one in particular.

  Seven fifty-nine. The cheers and cries from inside had built up into a roar of anticipation. Just as the volume of noise from the City was growing, so too did his army grow louder and more impatient.

  “Not yet!” he shouted above the noise.

  Suddenly and without warning, the walled off area descended into silence again. Taking their cue from those on the other side, the men of the Old-Town grew equally quiet. With his breath held, Taylor watched as the huge steel doors began their journey to where they would meet each other, permanently sealing off the new world from the old. He had imagined it would be a noisy affair with the heavy grinding of mechanical gears, but instead the doors closed with silent, hydraulic efficiency.

  Seconds later, and just as quickly as it had started, all movement ceased. The doors were frozen in the half-open, half-closed position. Taylor was aware of movement around him as the men began to rise to their feet.

  “Stay down,” he shouted, stopping them in their tracks, “wait until I give the order.”

  From inside the City the crowds began to get louder again. But this time instead of celebratory cheers, there now arose a murmur of concern. This was quickly followed by at least a hundred troopers piling out from behind the steel doors, lining up menacingly behind the checkpoint on the perimeter fence. Even from the distance he was observing, Taylor could detect the agitation in the soldiers. They were beginning to realise something was wrong.

  He looked across to Jacob.

  “Stay at the back,” he said quickly, “you’re less likely to get hurt.”

  Jacob’s response surprised him, “Don’t worry about me, I’m not scared of dying.”

  He had a look of serene calm about him like he was about to start meditating, not invade a city.

  More sounds burst from the other side of the wall but this time they were from much further off and of a different type altogether. It wasn’t the sound of cheers or applause they could now hear, but instead, the dull thud of a distant explosion. The exact location of where the noise had come from was soon marked by a plume of thick, black smoke rising up from near the eastern perimeter of the City. Seconds later, there was another thud, but this time from the City’s western edge. Like before, a black cloud soon betrayed the origin of the noise.

  As quickly as the troops had appeared at the checkpoint, they turned and re-entered the City leaving only a dozen or so men to guard the southern doorway.

  “That’s it,” Taylor shouted as he got to his feet, “Let’s go!”

  Despite the pain, he had set off at full tilt, running as fast as his beaten body could carry him. He’d learnt from painful experience in Canada that when launching an assault, you stood the best chance of surviving if you kept moving as fast as possible. Stopping to help your fallen comrades wasn’t an option. It was for that reason he left Jacob struggling to his feet as men from behind charged past. Hopefully those at the front would have already stormed the City by the time Jacob finally got there.

  No sooner had the cry for action gone up and the men commenced their charge, than the bullets started flying. Taylor had only advanced ten feet when the man next to him staggered off to his left as he took a shot to the body. He had to slow himself down as the dying man cut across his path in a comical fashion as his feet struggled to keep up with his upper body before tumbling flat on his face. He could hear cries of pain from all around as the sentries on top of the wall fired at will.

  Even though the ground was hard, it was still difficult to progress with any speed, due to the terrain they had to cover. The landscape resembled the surface of the moon with deep craters everywhere; remnants of the last time the City had been attacked. As Taylor dragged himself out of one of these holes, he felt the force of a bomb that had been dropped from one of the drones that flew overhead. His face was sprayed with dirt and he spat out the smaller fragments that had forced their way into his mouth.

  A relatively flat stretch of land now needed to be covered before the craters started again. Traversing this open ground, he could only crouch lower to the earth to make himself less of a target as the drones dropped their incendiary loads before soaring off into the atmosphere. The next set of divots and an island of relative safety were only feet away when the world was suddenly turned black and silence enveloped him.

  Taylor was no longer on the battlefield. He was once more on the beach with the sun burning down on his back as he looked out to the blue sea ahead of him. From the silence, emerged the sound of waves pushing gently onto the shore. Waist deep in the water, he saw Charlotte, her top-half naked, beckoning him towards her. She smiled as he started his run to the water’s edge, and as his feet splashed against the waves he could hear her laughter carried on the wind.

  When he had waded deep enough, Taylor dived under the surface. He felt cleansed and refreshed as the water cooled and soothed his skin. When he came up again and opened his eyes, he could no longer see Charlotte; she had left him again. He called out her name and then watched as she resurfaced
a little further out. This time only her arms and head could be seen. She was still smiling at him but without the confidence of before. Taylor swam towards her with all his might but with every stroke, she seemed to drift further away from him.

  Somehow, from some unknown reserve, he summoned the energy to slowly close the space between them. When he was finally close enough to reach out and grab her she had disappeared altogether, and in that instant, Taylor realised that he had spent every last bit of energy, and just like that, his body gave out as he sunk under the water. What surprised him as he drifted toward the ocean bed was just how calm it all felt. He willed himself deeper into the abyss, hoping that when he got to the bottom, he would see Charlotte once more. That was when he felt a pair of hands clasp his wrists with a cold, steely grip that was far too strong for Charlotte’s fragile physique. He looked up at her and smiled as she dragged him back towards the surface, and even though they were under water, he clearly heard her say his name as she pulled him to safety.

  “Taylor,” he was aware of his name being called again, only this time it was from a much deeper source.

  “Taylor, wake up.”

  His arms were in pain. It felt like they were being pulled out of the sockets at his shoulder. They were above his head and someone very strong was pulling on them. He slowly opened his eyes to see a small, white object flying through the sky above him in complete silence. At first he thought the light must have been a shooting star, but when it was followed by a dozen more, he realised it was tracer bullets being shot at the other intruders. His hearing came back with a vengeance as the sound of a nearby explosion awoke his senses. As his body orientated itself, Taylor realised that he was being hauled out of a crater. With a final heave from his rescuer, he was out of the hole and flat on his back. He looked up to see WarChild kneeling over him, gasping for air.