Metal

by Thomas Hall

  “I’m looking for volunteers to go on a scavenger hunt,” Samuel said.

  They wanted him to go on a suicide mission to get a woman, who was already close to dead, some pills. Which might not even exist anymore.

  Brett started getting up to leave.

  “Wait,” Samuel said, putting out a hand and touching Brett’s arm. Brett turned to look at him, but said nothing. “Here me out. If you still don’t want to go, I’ll understand and won’t say anything more about it.”

  Brett nodded, he didn’t think there was anything Samuel could say to convince him.

  “Good. Thank you,” Samuel said. He bowed his head as if in prayer and after a moment he looked up. The expression on his face had changed. “We all have secrets Brett,” he said. “Every single one of us. No one here asks about each other people’s past because we don’t want to be asked about our own. We’ve all lost people and sometimes the only way to survive is to try and move past those memories and make some new ones.”

  There was no question in Brett’s mind that Samuel knew. The question was how he knew. No one from the group had recognised him when he’d arrived, no one new had come since.

  “Don’t you think?” Samuel said.

  Brett found himself nodding. He struggled to look at his accuser, when he did he saw him wearing an expression that meant only one thing: I’ve got you now.

  “Of course,” Samuel continued. “Some of our secrets are greater than others. Some of the people here were heroes, some of them were cowards. I wouldn’t judge,” he continued, happy to continue without Brett taking part. “But these are unusual times. Other’s might not be so forgiving.”

  Brett stared a hole in the wall behind Samuel. He wished that he’d left when he’d had a chance.

  Samuel crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, watching Brett, waiting for him to respond.

  “What do you want?” Brett said.

  “I’ve told you what I want. I want you to help us get medicine for Melanie.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “Then I can’t promise you that other people in the group will be as understanding as I am. The Resistance are heroes to them. Fighting for the survival of humanity is the highest calling.”

  “It’s not like that,” Brett said.

  “I’m sure I couldn’t possibly understand,” Samuel said.

  Brett shook his head. He thought about his troop dying in the department store. He thought about Dina sacrificing himself so he could escape. He thought about the millions of bodies that clogged the streets and the smell of death in the air.

  He didn’t want to return to that world, but if he had to, at least he understood it.

  “You’ll tell them if I don’t agree?” he said.

  “I will,” Samuel said. To his credit, he didn’t appear ashamed of the threat.

  “Then I don’t have much choice, do I?”

  “Doesn’t look like it.”

  Brett nodded, the closest he could get to agreeing out loud. He tried not to think about the danger and futility of it all. Even if they got the medicine and made it back, there was a one in a million chance that they would be able to save the woman.

  “I don’t want us to be enemies Brett,” Samuel said.

  Brett looked at him, he had assumed the discussion was over and that there was nothing more to say.

  “I don’t know what happened to you out there, why you turned your back on it all and came down here. I don’t know why you seclude yourself from the rest of the group like you do. All I know is that this is the right thing to do and we stand a much better chance of succeeding if we have you with us.”

  “How many are going?” Brett said, prefering to get down to business rather than make friends.

  “Ten of us, including you.”

  Brett nodded, considered the odds. “Okay, we need to lose four of them. Six should be enough and there’s less chance of us getting caught.”

  Samuel said nothing but when Brett looked up, he saw the man smiling.

  “What?”

  “You seem to have misunderstood how this is going to work,” he said.

  Brett frowned.

  “You aren’t in charge Brett, I am. I’ll listen to your advice, but I won’t take your orders.”

  He closed his eyes, sighed and then opened them again. “Fine. Then I advise you to only take six people. The fewer of us there are, the smaller the chance we’ll register on the Machines sensors. Ten is a big risk.”

  “Thank you,” Samuel said. “I’ll consider it.”

  “When do we leave?” Brett said.

  “We’ll be travelling at night, sheltering during the day. We go in six hours.”

  Brett got up.

  “Is there somewhere you need to be?” Samuel said.

  “If we’re leaving tonight then I want to get some rest.”

  Samuel said, “I’ll have someone bring your things. You can wait in here until it’s time to go.”

  Brett didn’t sit down.

  “Yes, I’m worried that everything you’ve told me is a lie,” Samuel said. “And that as soon as you’re out of here you’ll run for the tunnels and we’ll never be able to catch you. Yes, I’m keeping you prisoner until it’s time to go. Any other questions?”

  It would do no good to claim he hadn’t been planning to run, he had no capital with Samuel, no way to prove his honesty. He didn’t try to convince him. Brett sat back down in the chair.

  “Good,” Samuel said. “Very good.”

  CHAPTER 7

  BRETT OPENED HIS EYES AND LOOKED UP. SAMUEL was standing in front of him.

  “It’s time to go,” he whispered.

  Brett nodded and rubbed his face. He’d fallen asleep shortly after Samuel had left the room.

  Samuel opened the door and Brett followed him out.

  He could run now, he thought. The entrance to the tunnels was to his left. He could drop down onto the track and Samuel would never catch him. He didn’t have to go through with this foolish plan.

  Brett followed Samuel to another door. They went through and Samuel switched on a torch.

  There were two escalators in front of them, separated by a staircase. The escalators were out of order so they took the stairs.

  Six figures stood at the top. It looked as if Samuel had compromised on his advice and left two behind. Eight would still be a risk, but it was better than ten. Brett couldn’t see their faces until he reached the top and they turned around.

  “What’s he doing here?” Richard said.

  Brett stopped in front of him. He felt the others looking at him as well, wondering the same thing.

  “Brett volunteered to come with us,” Samuel said. “He wants to help.”

  The two sisters, Victoria and Elizabeth, looked at him with distaste. Joanna, Lisa and Ben said nothing. It didn’t escape Brett’s notice that Elizabeth and Ben were not dressed for going outside.

  “Did you get the guns?” Samuel said.

  Ben nodded and lifted a canvas bag. He held it out and Samuel looked inside.

  “Good work. You two are in charge while we’re gone. You can handle it?”

  “We won’t let you down,” Elizabeth said.

  Six of them were going, Brett realised.

  “I know you won’t,” Samuel said. He gave them both a nod and then turned to the rest of them. “We should get moving. Have you got everything you need?”

  They all did.

  He reached into the bag and handed Blasters to each of them. Brett didn’t expect to receive one, but Samuel held it out and he took it. There was something very reassuring about the weight of a Blaster back in his hand.

  “Let’s get this show on the road then,” Samuel said. “On me.”

  Brett followed the others through the station. They had to jump over the ticket barriers and then go up another flight of stairs. He hadn’t realised how far below ground they’d been. That they had still felt the Machines attack was troubling.

>   It occurred to him that the weapons technology hadn’t stood still while he’d been away. Both sides would have been developing bigger guns to destroy each other with. The Blaster that Samuel had given him was old, second or third generation at most. What if the Machines had shielded against them now? They would be walking into a battlefield unarmed.

  There didn’t appear to be anything he could do about it now. He kept walking.

  The station lay in ruins all around them. Craters and scorch marks covered the pitted ground. None of the signage survived to tell them where they were. There were dozens of train tracks in front of them and the shell of a Cafe Nero. The carriage of a train lay on its side, half on the platform, half off.

  The six of them stood at the top of the stairs and looked up at the dark sky. It had been months since Brett had seen it, for some of them, it might have been years. It was a lot to take in.

  It was quiet and that was a good thing. There had been a battle here, but not recently. The fires had gone out and there were no bodies. It was a small mercy, but, until this was over, small mercies were all that Brett could hope for.

  No one spoke.

  He watched them taking it in. He hoped that they would be able to hustle when they needed to.

  Brett looked away and then Samuel did.

  “We need to get moving,” Samuel said.

  They followed him through the station. The electronic signs were on the ground, smashed into a hundred pieces. It was not clear whether the Resistance had destroyed them, or the Machines. At this point it didn’t matter.

  A deactivated Droid lay on its side at the exit. Its visual sensors were coal black and its left leg blown clean off. It was an old model; bigger and weaker than the one’s Brett had fought in his last days of war. It would have been slow and easy to defeat, but built like a tank and heavy enough to break the cement where it had fallen.

  He checked his Blaster for charge, it was from the same era as the Droid, but he hoped it would serve him better. He hurried to catch the others who were already halfway up the ramp to the street.

  A pile of Drones lay on the ground at the entrance to the station. Like the Droid, they were old models. Only a couple of generations removed from the ones that humans had built. Unlike the Buzzards, they were easy to spot and had limited swarm intelligence. These weren’t the remains of a recent battle.

  “It looks clear,” Samuel said.

  Brett went to join him at the corner. He looked around at the shells of buildings and the rusted skeletons of cars and trucks. None of the surviving buildings had glass left in the windows, but Samuel was right; there was no danger.

  “Which way?” Brett said.

  “We need to head east,” Samuel said.

  “Where to?” Brett said, thinking that he might be able to offer a better route, as soon as he worked out where they were.

  “There’s a hospital on Friar Street. We should be able to get what we need near there.”

  Brett worked backwards until he’d figured out where they were. Paddington Station, where the bear came from.

  A gentle wind blew the smell of gunpowder across the wastelands. Brett watched the shadows between the buildings, scanning for movement. He checked reflections in the glass and listened for the early sound of Buzzards.

  The area appeared to be safe, but he wasn’t prepared to take that for granted.

  The rest of the group didn’t share his caution. After a few minutes of scampering from one hiding place to another, they gave up trying to be quiet.

  Brett glanced at them with disgust. They weren’t trained, and that had never been more obvious.

  He moved up the group, keeping low and making sure his Blaster was ready for the first sign of trouble. They looked at him as if he’d got more than one screw loose. He knew they wouldn’t be so cocky if a Droid appeared around the next corner.

  “Do you think it’s over?” Lisa said to Joanna.

  Joanna shook her head.

  “We’d know if it was over,” Richard said. Who he thought would tell him, wasn’t exactly clear. He noticed Brett creeping past him towards Samuel. “What do you think Brat?”

  “It’s Brett,” he muttered under his breath.

  “Yeah, so, what did I say?”

  Brett shook his head. He ignored the question but heard Victoria taking it up. Her theory was that the fighting had moved elsewhere. It was about what Brett surmised, but he had more sense than to say so.

  “Samuel?” he whispered.

  Samuel turned and looked at him, his face creased with concern. “What is it?” he said.

  “The area isn’t safe,” Brett said.

  “What do you mean?” He looked around as if he might be able to see the danger that Brett was talking about. “There’s no one here.”

  “That we can see,” Brett said. “They’ll have sensors in the area, if they pick us up they might investigate.”

  “They’re not going to investigate,” Richard said.

  Brett turned around to see that he had snuck up on them while they were talking.

  “There’s nothing to worry about Brat, we’ll look after you.”

  Brett stared at him. A shot with the Blaster wouldn’t kill him (unless he had an electronic pace maker), but it would hurt plenty.

  “Hey girls,” Richard said. “You’ll look after Brat, won’t you?”

  They didn’t respond, but Brett didn’t kid himself that it meant they were standing up for him. The fact that they didn’t like Richard’s game, didn’t mean they were his friends.

  “Look,” he said, turning away from them and addressing Samuel. “There’s a reason you brought me along on this suicide mission, and I’m guessing it’s not my good looks and charm. I’m telling you that we’re making too much noise and you need to do something about it.”

  He wondered how Samuel was going to react, and what that would mean for the dynamic of the group.

  Samuel answered with a sigh. “Keep the noise down, okay? We don’t know what we’re dealing with here.”

  “Are you going to listen to him?” Richard said, making no attempt to hide his disgust, or lower his volume. “You’re going to do what Brat says?”

  “That’s right,” Samuel said, rounding on Richard. “Have you got a problem with that?”

  Richard hesitated before answering. “No,” he said.

  “No what?” Samuel said.

  Richard shook his head. “No, no problem. I’ll keep it down.”

  They walked on in silence after that. Whenever Brett turned in his direction, he saw Richard staring at him with a scowl.

  CHAPTER 8

  BRETT HAD BEEN IN THE TUNNELS FOR SO long that it came as a surprise when the sun began to rise.

  There was a house in the middle of the street with boarded up windows. The front garden was overgrown. They had to fight their way to the front door and, when they got there, they found it locked.

  Samuel knocked and Brett was not the only one who looked at him with confusion. It seemed that he hadn’t revealed everything to anyone, not even Richard.

  Brett’s hand fell towards his Blaster. He didn’t know who was going to answer and his natural inclination was to be cautious. It was possible, he thought, that the whole thing had been a trap, a setup to capture him.

  He shook the thought away. That wasn’t cautious, it was outright paranoid.

  The door opened a crack and he could see only darkness inside. A man spoke in a voice distorted by a scarf across his mouth. “Who are you? What do you want?”

  “It’s me,” Samuel said. “Let us in before the sun rises.”

  “How do I know I can trust you?” the man said.

  “Because we swam through the same swamp to get here. Now open the door or I’ll break it down.”

  The door closed and then opened. A man with a bald head and thick grey beard stood in front of them. The rags he wore clung to his overweight body. “It’s good to see you Sam,” he said.

  “You t
oo Ivan,” Samuel said.

  The two men looked at one another and then at the same time stepped forwards and embraced.

  Ivan led them into the house. It was a ruin, even on the inside. The paint was peeling from the walls. Ancient furniture and ornaments lay where they had fallen. Tears in the carpet revealled dusty wooden floorboards beneath.

  None of them spoke. Brett guessed they were as uncomfortable as he was about the situation, but no one questioned it.

  At the end of the hallway Ivan unlocked a door. It hissed as it swung towards them and Brett heard voices coming from below.

  “Don’t look so worried,” Ivan said as they walked past him to the stairs. “No one’s going to hurt you.”

  The stairs led into a basement that was at least twice as wide as the house above. There was ratty old furniture around the outside, rugs in the middle and the smell of recently cooked food. The voices stopped as they stepped into the room.

  Two young girls with blond hair tied up in pigtails looked at him. A middle-aged woman stood behind them. Brett found himself moving closer to Joanna and Lisa. No one said anything until Ivan came into the room behind them.

  “This is my wife Emma,” he said. “And our daughters; Mary and Helen.”

  Emma smiled, the two girls stepped closer to one another and their mother.

  “Make yourselves at home,” Ivan said. “There’s sleeping bags at the back.”

  Nobody moved. Ivan looked at Samuel. Samuel turned and spoke to them. “It’s fine. Ivan used to be my teacher, you’re safe here.”

  Still, nobody moved. There was something unexplained going on and none of them were comfortable with it. This wasn’t something they had expected. They had all come to believe that, these days, unexpected things were likely to kill you.

  “Sit down,” Ivan said.

  They looked at Samuel, he nodded and they backed away to take seats on the opposite side of the room.

  “What’s going on?” Victoria said.

  “This is a safe house,” Samuel said. “Nothing will happen to us while we’re here.”

  Victoria shook her head as if she didn’t believe him. Samuel sighed.

  “When I realised that we were going to come above ground, I contacted other cells and my people on the surface.”