Loop

by Ben Oliver

  ‘Good enough for me,’ Malachai says, stepping forward to join me. ‘I’m coming with you.’

  ‘Me too,’ Kina says.

  ‘I get to kill him,’ Pander says, ‘for my sisters.’

  I nod.

  ‘It can’t be,’ Blue says, looking from one of us to the next. ‘He’s the Overseer.’

  ‘We’ve all been tricked, kid,’ Malachai says. ‘It’s not your fault.’

  Blue looks down at the ground, his small fists bunching up and then releasing. ‘I’m coming too.’

  I open my mouth to tell him he can’t come, that he’s too young, but his furious eyes meet mine.

  ‘Don’t you dare tell me I can’t be there when that bastard dies. Don’t you dare.’

  I nod my head. ‘Alright.’

  ‘I wish I could be there,’ Igby says, smiling. ‘If you guys aren’t shot to pieces within three seconds make sure you kill him fucking slowly, OK?’

  ‘Will do,’ Pander says, and then turns towards the centre of the city. ‘Let’s go.’

  The sounds of a large crowd in Midway Park can be heard from kilometres away; great yells and screams, and an amplified voice, muffled by the distance, rings out.

  ‘Hey, if we ever see Pod again remind me to make fun of him for being called Podair,’ Malachai says as we dash from building to building, trying not to be spotted by the few soldiers who still patrol the streets.

  ‘Shh!’ Pander hisses, and points forwards.

  Up ahead three soldiers lean against a military tank, talking amongst themselves.

  We move closer, circling around an antiques store to close the gap until we’re close enough to hear them.

  ‘Honestly, I don’t care. Tier Three is better than nothing, and I’ll follow that man to the grave after what he’s done for me and my family,’ a skinny female soldier says, her gas mask hanging down at her chest as she leans her rifle against the tracks of the tank and turns back to the other two.

  A young male soldier with a mohawk nods emphatically. ‘Hey, look, I’m not complaining, believe me, I agree with you – Tier Three is like winning the lottery a thousand times over. I’m just saying, my friend Yawa; she earns four thousand Coin more than me per year and she got into Tier Two, that’s all I’m saying, it’s an observation.’

  ‘Well, keep your observations to yourself,’ the oldest of the three says, spitting into the dusty street. ‘That kind of talk starts to sound a lot like treason.’

  Mohawk holds both hands up. ‘You guys need to calm down, I’m just saying that we must have been close to Tier Two, that’s all.’

  ‘But we’re Tier Three, so shut up about it,’ the woman says.

  ‘Fine, fine, I’ll shut—’

  The man’s head snaps back, his mohawk whipping to one side, as a USW round hits him above the left eye.

  I look around, trying to figure out what’s just happened, and I spot Pander – she’s dashed over, snatched up the female soldier’s gun and fired before any of us or them have had a chance to react. Now she’s aiming it at the second, older man.

  ‘Hold on a second,’ the man commands.

  ‘Fuck you!’ Pander screams as she shoots him. Then she swivels the gun and kills the woman before she can react.

  The whole slaughter took less than five seconds. In this moment I don’t know what to feel. Pander is thirteen years old and here she is; so failed by the system and by the world that she is able to murder three people without thinking twice.

  ‘That was . . . that was . . .’ Malachai tries, but he too is lost for words.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Pander says, throwing the fallen soldiers’ guns at each of us before taking the Lens from the older soldier’s eye and activating the enormous tank.

  We drive until we’re close enough to see the park. There are maybe a thousand people crowded around a stage where Galen Rye stands, his hands held aloft. Behind him, projected into the sky is a fifteen-metre holographic recreation of Galen, ensuring that everyone gets a clear view of the man who killed millions of innocent people. He steps forward and the crowd falls silent. When he speaks his voice echoes through the silent city.

  ‘In times of extreme jeopardy, extreme action is required,’ he intones, his voice amplified via the almost invisible patch-microphone stuck to his jawline. ‘Think not of what has been forced upon you as a sin; think instead that it is a necessity. You may be haunted for the rest of your days on this earth, but that is the price we all must pay so that our children and our children’s children may live a good life, a life that they deserve.’

  The crowd cheers, a roar so animalistic that I’m surprised to look into the horde and see human faces. I see soldiers as young as fifteen and as old as fifty as they cheer and yell and hug each other.

  Galen leans forward until his lips are almost pressed against the microphone. He speaks again: ‘What we have sacrificed, what we have given – so that the world can thrive – may be looked upon by the historians and the scholars of the future as a heinous act of self-preservation, and they will be right, my friends. Let’s not pretend that we are morally pure, but without our sacrifices, our bravery, our ability to look history in the eye and say we had to do what we had to do, there would have been no future in which to scorn us!’

  Standing behind Galen in a straight line are eight other Alts, all of them with the same glowing eyes as the soldiers atop the Black Road Vertical. What is that? I wonder. A new Alt enhancement? There’s no time to consider it further, as the roar of the horde rises up to meet us. The crowd adores this man.

  ‘What have they done?’ Malachai whispers.

  ‘The heartbreak is over, my friends, the culling of the world is done, and we are the survivors, we are part of the two per cent, the lucky few. Phase One is complete,’ Galen Rye yells, and as the crowd roars their appreciation, he holds his hands up to silence them. ‘Strike that,’ he says. ‘Phase One is almost complete.’

  He gestures off-stage and my heart skips a beat as Wren is marched to stand beside Galen. Walking beside her is a soldier with a Deleter; the crescent-moon-shaped piece of technology that they use to execute inmates. The weapon is glowing with the power it possesses to break matter down into subatomic particles, deleting whatever it comes into contact with. Keeping Wren in check with such an extreme weapon seems unnecessary – she looks so lost and confused that I’m not sure she knows what’s going on. The only positive thing is that she is no longer a Smiler.

  We were right, I think. There is a cure.

  ‘Nine surviving escapees from the Loop,’ Galen continues, his voice echoing around the now silent park, ‘plotting against us. Plotting to end the mission that we pledged to complete. And were they wrong to conspire? Ladies and gentlemen, no they were not. You and I – had we been in their shoes – would have done the same thing. This is what we must remember if we are to keep our humanity; we act on our instinct to survive and therefore we are all right and we are all wrong, we are all sinners and we are all virtuous, it all depends on what side of the line you stand. But this is the new world, and these people committed treason against us. Remind yourselves, my friends, that – had we not decided to take action – this overpopulated, overpolluted, overworked planet would have been drained of all resources, all habitable Regions, within ten years. We must set a precedent and we must not falter. The nine must turn themselves in, and, if they are truly righteous, they will. If they do not, this girl, the one who set them free, will die. This is a message, a benchmark, a line in the sand. We must be as one if we are to succeed.’

  There is a murmur among the crowd now, and for a second I dare to hope that they might push back against the Overseer’s declaration, that he might have gone too far and a mutiny might follow, but the murmurs subside as he holds his hands up for silence once again.

  ‘The nine escapees have twelve more minutes to turn themselves in.’

  My eyes move from the executioner gripping his Deleter to Wren, whose tired eyes scan the crowd, still un
aware of what’s going on or where she is. The crowd is not angry, they’re not baying for blood, they are calm and resolute.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ Kina asks.

  ‘There’s hundreds of them,’ Malachai says, the rage in his voice bubbling through.

  ‘We have a tank,’ I point out, ‘and not much time. I say we get close and kill Galen. Whatever happens after that happens.’

  Malachai nods slowly. ‘Well, fuck it, it’s not like we’re going to live much longer anyway. Count me in.’

  ‘Me too,’ Kina says.

  Blue nods.

  ‘Sounds good,’ Pander adds.

  I turn to Blue. ‘Blue, I’m sorry about what happened to Mable.’

  Blue bites his lip and looks right at me. ‘I’m sorry too,’ he says, his voice cracking as he smiles.

  I nod, and Pander drives us on towards the park.

  Kina takes control of the sonic-cannon and I sit at the gun turret – we both have screens in front of us so we can see what we’re aiming at from inside the tank.

  The tank moves quietly through the streets. We sit side by side in silence, perfectly ready to die.

  The snow has melted to a thin layer now. The sky is black and dotted with stars.

  As we move onwards, Kina reaches out a hand and I take it. She smiles at me and there’s sadness in her eyes. I feel that sadness too, because when we die so does all of the potential of what we could have been together.

  As we turn on to Midway Park Road, I can’t help but think it would have been such a lovely evening if it weren’t for all the death and destruction.

  ‘Here we go,’ Malachai says as we turn to face the back of the crowd.

  The tank runs on a gravity engine, and is so quiet that the only sound comes from the great metal treads rolling along the road.

  Slowly the people begin to realize that something is wrong and turn towards us. At first they don’t panic – this is one of their own tanks – but when we don’t slow down, when we drive right into the crowd, they scream and dive out of the way of the enormous vehicle. And then there’s the sound of USW guns screeching through the air as the soldiers open fire. As the rounds hit us we can feel the tank rock, but we don’t move from our course.

  We travel onwards, through the parting crowd, waiting for the moment that Galen Rye falls into our sights.

  Malachai begins to sing Pander’s song, and he’s smiling. I smile too. Pander joins in.

  ‘I see him,’ Kina calls out, and at the same time I see him on my screen.

  He looks shocked, surprised, and somehow delighted.

  I adjust my sights, the crosshairs moving around the screen until I lock them on his smug face.

  Then, just as I’m about to pull the trigger, I see his eyes begin to glow bright, just like the soldiers standing behind him. That strange expression of glee melts from his face – in fact, all signs of life fall away. He is neutral, blank. His bright white eyes turn orange, and the tank falls still, my screen goes blank, and the sound of the electrics powering down fills the cockpit.

  ‘What happened?’ Kina yells, pulling at her trigger over and over to only the sound of an empty click.

  ‘There’s no power,’ Malachai says in a quiet voice.

  We look at each other, the silence oddly comforting, almost funny. We shrug, and grab our USW guns.

  Kina opens the hatch and climbs on to the turret of the tank. Malachai and I follow suit, then Pander and Blue climb out and stand beside us.

  We stand there, in the middle of the silent crowd, waiting for someone to speak, waiting for something to happen.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Galen says, smiling as the lights fade from his eyes once again, ‘it appears that a few of the escapees have decided to turn themselves in.’ Pander raises her weapon until it’s aiming at Galen. His smile widens. ‘Or perhaps not.’

  ‘What a way to go out,’ Malachai says, and smiles.

  ‘I’m glad I met you, you guys,’ Kina says.

  All five of us raise our guns to our shoulders. The bright-eyed soldiers behind Galen step forward, none of them carry weapons, but – as if the act of them stepping forward was some sort of signal – every soldier in the crowd readies their weapons for battle.

  We stand there, a thousand guns pointed right at us, frozen in time for what feels like for ever.

  And then half the stage explodes in a fiery blast, followed quickly by another explosion in the crowd near the front.

  Alts fly through the air, screaming and wailing, limbs torn off, blood spraying, flames engulfing them.

  I lower my weapon and stare at the carnage, and then I hear the roar of an army. We turn to see hundreds of Regulars sprinting into the park, a few of them carrying USW guns, others with 21st century machine guns that take ammunition, some with knives, bows and arrows, lumps of wood or farming tools. At the front there are about twenty of them on horseback, swinging great swords.

  Someone screams a command, and a volley of arrows sails through the night sky and into the crowd of Alts to our right.

  Somewhere among the charging army of Regulars, I see Woods Rafka, the old-school USW pistol from the Loop held in two hands as he fires bursts into the crowd. The rest are hundreds of faces that I don’t recognize at all, and yet somehow I know that these are The Missing, these are the people who have been disappearing from the city year after year.

  ‘Draw. Aim. Fire!’ someone calls out again and a second torrent of arrows flies into the sky.

  And then all fifty or so of the archers shoulder their bows, draw knives and dive into the battle.

  I watch the arrows soaring through the sky, I watch them thunder into the Alts. And there – in the corner of the park – I see fifteen or sixteen Alts gathered by the trees, all with headlight-eyes, standing still, watching with great curiosity as the battle rages.

  I tear my gaze away from the cluster of bright-eyed onlookers, and I see some of our ranks fall, their bodies hitting the ground as the Alts take aim with their more sophisticated weapons. It’s enough to snap me out of my stupor, and I jump down from the tank, firing three rounds at soldiers dressed in black in front of me. All three of them fall down, dead.

  ‘Oh, fuck.’ I try not to acknowledge that I have just taken three lives, but I freeze up, staring at the corpses.

  And then Shion’s voice comes into my head. If you want to survive you better get good at taking people out before they take you out. And I’m moving again.

  I push past a pile of bodies, and almost trip over an Alt choking the life out of a Regular. I press the barrel of my gun against the Alt’s head, pull the trigger and keep on running.

  There’s a sense of unreality, like none of this can possibly be happening. Dozens of Alts and Regulars dying all around me, mud and blood splashing into the air as stray bullets and rounds thump into the ground, death rattles and screams piercing the air. And throughout all of this, the huddle of Alts with the glowing eyes is still gathered by the trees, just watching the carnage, not helping, not fleeing, just watching. I see a stream of bullets rip up the middle of one of the glowing-eyed Alts, and she falls down dead. I stop and watch, perplexed, as a nearby Alt’s eyes glow. He stops, turns and joins the small group, watching, still.

  I feel a sonic bullet whoosh past my right ear and turn to see a teenage girl taking aim for her second shot. There is no time to react, and I know she won’t miss this time. Before she can pull the trigger, she convulses, almost dancing on the spot as pockets of blood burst out of her. She falls to the floor, and behind her is Woods Rafka, on one knee, the barrel of the old USW pistol glowing orange from the heat. He nods at me while getting to his feet, and then turns and moves deeper into the park.

  I shoot an approaching soldier twice in the chest as I fight through to the front. As two more Alts fall in front of me, I see Blue firing a pistol at three soldiers – he hits all three and then turns frantically, aims his gun and then realizes it’s me, and smiles. I almost have time to smile bac
k before his left shoulder and part of his chest disappear into a cloud of dust that dissipates in the wind. His eyes widen in shock and he falls to his knees. Blood begins to pump out of the gaping hole in his side.

  ‘No!’ I scream, as I run towards him, firing over and over again at the man in black who swung the Deleter. I pull the trigger five times, six, seven, and even though he was dead before he hit the floor, I fire thirty more rounds into him, screaming in anger, before dropping down beside the young boy who had been free from the Loop for only three days.

  His eyes search mine, begging for me to help him as blood begins to spill from his mouth.

  ‘Stay with me, Blue! Stay alive!’

  His eyes fill with so much fear and pain that I have to look away. I stare into the gaping wound down his left side and I can see his struggling heart. The skin is frantically regrowing, bone fragments like tree roots reaching out, veins snaking and fusing together.

  ‘Luka—’

  ‘Shut up, Blue!’ I scream, my voice hoarse. ‘You’re going to be fine, just shut up.’ I want the boy to conserve his energy, want him to lie still and wait for this strange magic that we have been imbued with to fix him.

  ‘Luka—’

  ‘Just shut up, Blue, please!’

  But the magic is slowing. His weak heart misfires and stalls between his partially regrown ribs.

  ‘Luka . . .’

  ‘No! Blue, No! Do not give up.’

  And the healing stops completely.

  I look back into the young boy’s eyes.

  ‘Luka, I’m so scared.’

  I can feel the tears falling on to my cheeks, and I wish I knew how to take away his fear, I wish I knew the words to say to make him believe that everything will be alright.

  A USW round slams into the ground beside us, sending a shower of dirt and stones into the air. I shield the dying boy with my body.

  ‘It’s OK, it’s going to be OK,’ I say.

  ‘I don’t want to go . . . I don’t want to . . .’

  ‘It’s going to be OK, Blue,’ I tell him again, as if repeating the lie will make it true.