“No. They are killing Ava.” He scrambled to his feet, but I grabbed him and pulled him back. “It’s just a machine. You can make another.”
I struggled to hold him, while the noise of Ray’s creation being destroyed reverberated through the room. The cut in his head started bleeding again, and tears ran down his cheeks. It was only when the computer was in pieces that Ray stopped fighting me and slid back down to the floor.
“Don’t make this difficult,” the leader said to me.
I still didn’t know who wanted me or why, but given what had happened, I preferred not to find out. The one with the rifle was still smashing pieces of the computer on the floor, but none of the others seemed to have weapons, and no one was waiting at the hole of the wall they had created.
So I sprang to my feet and dashed forward. Several arms grabbed for me. I managed to keep going, but I felt a sharp stab in my neck. I scrambled through the hole in the wall. In the main bar, a wheeled trolley was blocking the door, and on it sat another person in a radiation suit and black mask.
“Get out of my way,” I shouted. At least that’s what I’d tried to shout, but all that came out were incomprehensible sounds. The room started spinning, and I reached for the mahogany bar, trying to grab something stable. But the bar wouldn’t stay still long enough for me to reach it, and I fell to the floor.
On the ground, my head faced sideways, and I saw the leader in the radiation suit step toward me. It was then that I recognized him—or rather her. The mannerisms were unmistakable once the realization popped into my head, for I had seen them my whole life. It was my mother, Zirconia.
My eyelids closed.
Chapter 4
When I came to, my head was still turned to the side, and my neck was sore. I was facing a corner from which hung a screen. Adam Levitt was reporting the news headlines.
“Hand-to-hand fighting is taking place in Under Norleans passageways as the Territories ground offensive gathers strength. The Bolivar has taken position directly over Under Nyork, and bombing has begun. Celeste terrorist Jordi Roberts is still on the run. It is believed that he has gone to ground in the Harlem district.”
I turned away and tuned out the voice of the news anchor. My newfound knowledge about the destruction of the Australian Colonies made the war news even more worrying, but I couldn’t listen to a broadcast that gave the lies about me as much weight as everything else.
I looked around. The room was dim and shadowy, and I was lying on a hospital trolley. The same one that had been in Ray’s bar, I guessed. They had been prepared to bring me here, conscious or unconscious.
My wrists were strapped down, and the clinking of the metal chains attached to the bonds caught Zirconia’s attention. Her face floated into view above me. She was still wearing the white radiation suit, but she had taken off the gas mask. “You’ve managed to fuck everything up much worse than I expected.”
I preferred her voice with the distorter in the mask switched on. It’d been more soothing.
“Anything to say for yourself?” she asked when I didn’t immediately reply.
I rattled my cuffs. “How about releasing me?”
She shook her head. “I’m going to have to keep you close. Can’t let you go running around on your own anymore.”
“For fuck’s sake, where do you think I’m going to go? My face and name are on every news bulletin. I don’t know where you have me holed up, but wherever it is, if I left, I’d be picked up very quickly. Even if I’m not captured, what am I going to do? I don’t have my ID card, so no money to buy food or pay for a place to stay. I don’t appreciate being captured by you, but I do realize that it’s the best possible thing that could have happened to me.”
“You haven’t shown much sense lately.” She frowned. “But it’s true. You have nowhere else to go.” She nodded to someone behind her and moved aside; a man came over to undo my cuffs. I sat up and looked around. I was in a workshop of some kind.
“Why don’t you turn on the lights?” I asked. “Is it because you like the dark atmosphere? Fits what you do here?”
“If we burned too much electricity, it could be detected.”
I was surprised to get a straight answer. Several people were bent over electronics boards; others typed at keyboards, their faces reflecting the light of their monitors. A far corner was intermittently lit up by a flare of red light from a welder.
“What are you building in here?”
She turned away. She clearly wasn’t going to tell me everything, but I had to use the opportunity to find out what I could.
“Why Darius and not me?” I asked. “Why did you recruit only your youngest son? Did you know that I couldn’t be turned to your side? That I would remain loyal to the Conference?”
Zirconia continued to stare into the distance. “I have dedicated every part of me to the cause. Every breath, every thought, every effort. Only one thing, I held back. I was only willing to give one of my sons to the war effort.” She snorted. “Then, of course, you go and join the ACM, become a fighter pilot, and get shot down. And now you seem determined to get yourself killed by being stupid. That’s what I get for holding something back. I guess I’m lucky you are still alive.”
For once, it sounded as though she cared for me, even if it was in a twisted way. “You didn’t visit when I crashed.”
“I’m not a doctor. How could I have helped? I had things that couldn’t wait.”
“Sabotaging other planes?”
“You surely don’t still believe that Celeste caused your accident, do you? Now that you know who is behind it?”
I guessed I didn’t. I had just accepted it as fact for so long, it was hard to let go. Now that I knew about Darius and Zirconia, that assumption didn’t make sense. “You could have helped by just being in the hospital with me. People are more than just tissue and bone. Doctoring wasn’t all I needed.”
Zirconia turned back toward me, a curl in her lip. “You needed your mammy, is that it? You are over forty now. Can’t you stand on your own two feet yet? If there’s one thing I thought I’d be able to pass on to my children, it was self-reliance.”
“Your training in self-reliance began the instant your children left the womb—is that it? A mother’s job ends there.”
“I made sure you never wanted for food or shelter. Coddling children so they turned into weaklings was never something I’d do. I don’t know how you turned out so needy. I sometimes wonder if there was a mix-up in the hospital.”
“Nice. That’s nice.” Conversations with mummy dearest didn’t tend toward the warm and fuzzy end of the spectrum, but she’d never disowned me completely before. “How did you find me in Three-Fingered Ray’s bar?” I forced back the anger that bubbled up inside me at the memory of the rifle butt hitting Ray in the face; I needed to keep Zirconia talking while she was being so unusually forthcoming.
She spread her arms wide. “Do you see all the computers and electronics in the room? Hacking into networks is what we do best. We knew about the rogue computer in Harlem, and we let it be. That was until it was used to learn more about Celeste, almost slipping past our firewalls. Then the decision was made to destroy it.”
“How did you know I’d be there?”
“It wasn’t certain. But you disappear into Harlem, and a short time later, the rogue computer begins to investigate Celeste. Didn’t take a genius…”
“So what’s the evil master plan? Are you welding together some diabolical machine to destroy the nation?”
“The plan is for you to stay out of trouble until this is all over.”
“All over? What does ‘over’ mean? Destruction of the American Conference? Of the world?”
“The end of this regime. The end to the Grand Council.”
“The Grand What now?”
Zirconia shook her head. “I’ve wasted enough time on you.” She put her hand on the trolley and rolled it toward the wall. “I don’t suppose you can stay there.” She looked
around the workshop. “You’ll just get in the way. I’ll have to find someone to keep you out of sight.” She walked over to the man who had uncuffed me, and they talked in hushed voices, throwing several glances my way.
They were discussing where to put me until everything was over. I had gotten all I was going to from Zirconia, and I had no intention of hiding somewhere until whatever was supposed to happen, happened. With the Conference on the brink of destruction, I didn’t see much difference between Zirconia’s prison and Larsen’s prison. I needed to be doing something, and I knew where I should be looking. There was a secret hidden in or around the Shroud, and I intended to find out where it was.
I slid off the trolley and into a standing position. The only decision to make was when to escape. And looking around, I realized no one was paying much attention to me. Zirconia and the man she was with had gone over to talk to someone else, and everyone else in the room was occupied with other projects. Then I noticed a discarded gas mask on a nearby table, and my mind was made up. If Celeste could use gas masks to hide their identity, why couldn’t I?
I picked up the mask and sprinted for the nearest exit.
Zirconia turned and saw me. “You gigantic idiot.”
She was probably right, but there was no way I could hide out until everything was over. I’d already been cowardly enough during the battle of Rockall. Whatever happened, I had to live with myself after.
I pushed open the door, putting on the mask. Behind me, racing footsteps told me that pursuit had been ordered. Zirconia wasn’t going to let her son just waltz away, no matter how idiotic he was.
The sheen of neglect in the corridor outside told me I was still in Harlem. That was good and bad: mibs weren’t likely to be around, but there were no conveyor pods to zip me away. And Mari Larsen no doubt had all of Harlem’s exit points guarded.
First, though, I needed to worry about Celeste. Pounding footsteps chased me as I skidded around the corner. If Zirconia captured me again, I wouldn’t get a second chance to escape; I would spend my immediate future either locked up or drugged. Still, despite all the uncertainty, racing through the passageways of Harlem made me feel great. Maybe it was the shocked faces of all those who turned to see a man in a gas mask running past them. Maybe it was that, with the worst of the whiskey cold turkey over, I felt as though I had the energy to run forever. The mask didn’t restrict my breathing or even feel particularly heavy.
It was the first breath of true freedom I’d had since I’d been able to fly. I gave a yelp of delight, which the voice distorter turned into a throaty growl. Still, I couldn’t kid myself. I knew the surge of adrenaline that was currently propelling me forward effortlessly would run out. From their crashing footsteps, my pursuers weren’t losing ground. I was coming into the more populated areas of Harlem, and having to dodge my way through the crowds slowed me down.
Then an idea hit me. I wasn’t sure whether it was genius, stupid, or somewhere in between, and I didn’t have the time to properly analyze it. So I just went for it. Right after turning at the next junction, I shouted out: “Run for your lives.” The voice distorter gave the words an extra touch of dread.
A ripple spread through the crowded corridor as everyone stopped what they were doing and turned toward me. I slowed my run to allow me to catch my breath. “Radiation leak. Bombing from Bolivar. Rupture.”
Harlem residents were used to crazies, but not many of them would have been wearing a gas mask. I could sense the mood wavering as people tried to figure out if I was just another madman. I didn’t wait around to persuade them, instead forcefully zigzagging past with frenetic movements.
“Run… radiation… there’s been a rupture.” I continued to shout out warnings in my distorted voice. When I heard that my pursuers had also turned the corner behind me, I turned back and pointed at where they burst through the crowd behind me.
“Look. From the contamination zone.” Their radiation suits added flavor to the story I was selling.
I turned and renewed my efforts to force my way through the crowd. “And they aren’t wearing any masks. It’s released. We’re all going to die.” I knew I wasn’t making total sense, but it was all about emotion. The actual words didn’t matter as long as there were some scary ones thrown in.
Getting through the crowd was becoming easier. I was no longer going against the flow. Like a snowball gathering pace, the people around me started to run in the same direction I was, and within moments, it was an avalanche. I had to sprint just so I didn’t get stampeded.
I no longer needed to shout anything because others were screaming about radiation, contamination, and an attack from the Territories. It made zero sense that enemy soldiers had invaded Harlem—in the lower levels of Under Nyork—but under the oppression of continual bad news, the mob was releasing their pent-up fears.
A person to my left staggered and disappeared under the onrushing crowd, and I had to hurdle a person who fell in front of me. I hoped they survived their falls and subsequent trampling with no more than bruises, but it was too late for regrets. I had set the avalanche in motion, but I no longer had any control. It was all I could do not to be run over by it myself.
I couldn’t look behind without risking a fall, but I doubted Celeste was still following. They had undoubtedly wanted to catch me without causing much of a scene, and that ship had well and truly sunk.
That solved the problem of getting away from Celeste, and I thought the stampede might also solve my second problem, if it didn’t crush me before then, as it was heading straight toward one of the entrances of Harlem. It wouldn’t matter how many mibs were on guard if I went through as part of the mob. I was still wearing the mask, so they wouldn’t recognize me.
My plan was still on a knife-edge between pure genius and absolute stupidity. The crowd continued to grow as we rapidly advanced, forcing many others to start sprinting before they got run over. Soon, newcomers were screaming out the same fears as everyone else: “Danger… invasion… death!”
I was beginning to wheeze, and my legs felt like jelly. The energy of the crowd pushed me forward, though, so I didn’t slow. Up ahead, I heard shouting, and over the bobbing heads of other runners, I saw several mibs lining the corridor. We were coming up to the exit of the district. The mibs didn’t try to stand in our way; they’d begun to scatter just as I’d spotted them.
As the frontrunners of the crowd tumbled out of Harlem, a loud and calm voice washed over our heads. “What are you running from?”
I wouldn’t have expected reason to help much in breaking the panic that had infected the mob, but we started slowing. The energy of the crowd must have been already fading, I guessed, if a single calm voice could have that effect.
“The Territories have broken through,” someone shouted back. “We have been invaded.”
We continued forward, but the pace slowed to walking. People glanced left and right at their neighbors, looking for direction. As I passed out of Harlem, I craned my neck to see one of the mibs was standing on a table off to the side. He was speaking into a device that transmitted his voice to the speakers all around us.
“No ground troops have been launched by the Bolivar,” the mib said. “There are no enemy soldiers in Under Nyork.”
Around me, everyone was coming to a stop; sheepish looks were exchanged.
“I say again: what are you running from?”
“Radiation leak,” I answered. It was a mistake. My answer drew attention to the one person in the crowd with the gas mask on.
“There is no danger. Return to your homes,” the mib on the table said. Even though his words were directed at everyone else, and he was wearing sunglasses, I knew that the mib was staring straight at me as he spoke.
I eased my way forward through the crowd just as everyone else was turning around and heading back. I started off trying to be innocuous, but because I was wearing a gas mask and everyone was looking at me, that didn’t work very well. I sped up and started barging
through. A quick look over my shoulder told me that several mibs were in pursuit; luckily, they were having as much trouble with the crowd as I was, and I had a decent head start.
After just finishing a headlong dash, I was in no shape to outrun anyone, so as soon as I escaped the crowd, I aimed straight at the nearest conveyor station. A group outside the pod was rubbernecking at the Harlem crowd.
One woman got into the pod just before I did. It might have been the gas mask or the tortured wheeze of my breath coming out of the sound distorter—either way, she hopped out as quickly as I jumped in, leaving me alone inside.
I pressed several buttons on the control, not caring where the pod took me as long as it was away. The door swished closed, and the pod left the station. At least five heartbeats ahead of the mibs, I thought, allowing myself a smile. Not bad.
Chapter 5
I took off the gas mask and threw it on the floor. I bent over and sucked in several long gulps of air. One hurdle accomplished, I thought, but I didn’t have time to congratulate myself. The next step was getting to the Shroud. I straightened and tried to change the destination on the control panel, but it didn’t seem to be working.
“Mr. Roberts,” Mari Larsen’s voice said.
I shook my head. Impossible. I just escaped.
The pod shuddered to a stop, and Mari Larsen’s face appeared on the screen. “Very inventive,” she said, “starting a panic and leading a mob out of Harlem. I haven’t seen anything like that before. You’ll have plenty of time to tell me how you managed it later.”
“I’m not done yet.”
“As you can tell, we know which pod you are in, and we have control of it.” The conveyor pod started moving again. “It’s now on its way to headquarters.” She smiled. “You’ve basically done our job for us and locked yourself up inside a cell.”
“I’m not done yet,” I repeated dumbly, without a clue about how I was going to get away.
World War 97 Part 3 Page 3