by Read, John
The three of us looked at Amelia as if she had three heads. Didn’t we talk about this? There was no way we could storm the Alamo! What chance did we have against an army?
But Amelia had that look in her eye again so we listened. “The colonists are freaking out. We can use this to our advantage. Now is the time to get inside!” Amelia said, pressing her index finger into the table. The four of us sat at the table in the observation lounge, each cupping a hot beverage, which seemed appropriate after being out in a storm.
Amelia sat back in her chair. “Why do the colonists think the dome blew up?” she asked. The question was rhetorical.
“I don’t know. Why did the dome blow up?” Kevin answered, sarcastically repeating the rhetorical question. “We’re sure as hell not going to admit to it!”
“No, we’re not,” I said. “If anyone asks, we tell them the storm did it.”
“The storm did it?” Kevin was astonished at the absurdity of the lie.
“Yup, the storm did it,” Amelia said with a smile. “If it’s not safe in the domes, where should people go?”
Kevin wasn’t getting it. Kevin was one of the smartest people on the planet but sometimes he was a bit slow. “For the love of Ganesha, please tell me what you are talking about!”
“The Presidio, Kevin,” I said. “H3’s underground paradise! We tell people about the underground dome, tell them it’s the only safe place, and convince them to get into the Alamo.”
Avro looked as if he really liked this idea. “This should keep the MDF soldiers distracted long enough for us to sneak inside, detach the nuclear reactor, and reclaim Project Bakersfield!”
If our theory was correct, the reactor provided just barely enough energy to sustain the storm. Shutting it down, or even disconnecting it, should allow the storm to dissipate naturally.
“You make it sound easy,” Amelia said. “And we might not get another chance. But we’ll need help.”
“It’s time to involve the cops isn’t it?” I said.
Amelia nodded. She knew she couldn’t stay hidden forever. It was time to play her final card. “We need an army. A thousand colonists, no matter how angry, just aren’t going to cut it.”
My phone buzzed. It was a text from Leeth: You guys okay? There’s rioting in the pavilion. I read the text aloud.
“Well, there’s our angry mob,” Amelia said.
“How do we get people to riot in the Alamo instead of the pavilion?” I asked. My mind filtered through several ideas about starting rumors or trying to reason with the crowd. None of these ideas seemed plausible.
Fortunately, Avro had the answer. “We show them the underground dome,” he said. “We show them the Presidio!”
“Avro, we have no evidence that the Presidio even exists,” I said.
“Yes, we do,” Avro said, smiling.
“Wait, we do?” Amelia said.
“After we opened the airlock and entered the underground dome, I turned on my suit’s data recorder. It was on the whole time.”
“I am so attracted to you right now.” She kissed him and then ran out of the room.
“Where are you going?” Avro asked.
“To make more weapons!” Amelia called from down the hall.
Kevin looked at Avro. “That is some woman you got there, bro.”
Avro just nodded. “I’m calling Jackson,” he said, reaching for his phone.
“Why not just call him from here?” I said, tapping the console.
“If the MDF monitors our channels, we’re about to say things we won’t want them to hear.
The phone rang twice before Jackson’s face appeared on the screen. “Jackson, it’s Avro. I’ve got John Orville and Kevin Patel here.” Avro set his phone down on the table, letting the device project Jackson’s image onto the table.
“What’s going on?” Jackson shouted. “There’s a dome blown to bits. The colonists are rioting outside my door and you’re calling my cell?”
“Jackson,” I said, getting his attention. “We have an idea and need your help. If the MDF is monitoring official communications, we don’t want them to hear this.”
“MDF bastards,” Jackson muttered. “I’m listening.”
“We both know we need to take back Project Bakersfield and at least disconnect the reactor. We need to get inside the Alamo.”
Jackson seemed desperate. “And you think you have a solution?”
I nodded and Jackson leaned back from the camera. “What do you need me to do?” he asked.
“We need to borrow your mob,” Avro said.
“Ha!” Jackson said. “You can have ‘em but why not herd cats while you’re at it. They’re angry. They blame us for the storm. Heck, they think it’s the end of the world!”
“Perfect. The angrier the better,” I said. “We’ll also need to borrow the cops, we’ll need them to clear the way, prevent any soldiers from stopping the mob from getting to the Alamo and protect them once they’re there.”
“Our officers against a military unit? Are you nuts? All they’ve got are stunners!”
“Send them here,” Avro said. “We have some presents for them.”
“How the hell did you get guns?” Jackson yelled, pressing the camera so close to his face we could only see his eyes.
“We don’t have guns,” I said. “Well, not exactly. And we’ll need Robert Bowden and his news crew. They’ll want to hear this. We have a way to save everyone from the storm, and from exploding domes.” I took a breath. “Kevin will send you the details.”
Jackson thought about this for a moment. “If you can get these people out of here, I’ll give you whatever you need.”
We firmed up the plan with Jackson and by the time we were done, he was confident the plan was sound. The colony had over a hundred police officers, and with thousands of rioting colonists, we believed we stood a fighting chance.
After the call, Avro turned to face me. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
“I’m sure. We better call Leeth and have him set up a medical station in the twelve o’clock dome.”
From this point on, we were no longer fighting a few conspirators. We were starting a war.
Kevin put a data-package together for NewsFlash. There were five large holovision screens in the pavilion. Our goal was to get our story on those screens. I ran down to open the warehouse. The officers would arrive in a matter of minutes.
Avro joined Amelia in the machine shop. He had his own plans for the mob.
“Amelia, how much fiber-plastic does it take to stop a bullet?” he asked.
She turned to a terminal and entered a series of commands. “Force equals mass times acceleration, dude,” she replied. “You’re making shields for the colonists.”
“Yup,” Avro said.
“Way ahead of you.” Amelia swiped her hand across the display, transferring a schematic over to Avro.
“Thirty-five millimeters. You are an amazing woman!”
Avro told the computers to print spears and shields until the machines ran out of filament. He then backed a panel truck up to the shop’s door and loaded the improvised weapons as the industrial printers spat them out.
From the parking lot, I marshaled the first six squad cars into the warehouse.
A dozen officers got out, including Captain Daniels.
“Good to see you, Captain,” I said. The officers stood around me in a semi-circle.
“Central briefed us on the plan. You really think you can turn off the storm?” Daniels asked.
“We hope so. The sooner we take back control of Project Bakersfield, the better,” I said.
Amelia stepped out of the shop, holding an armful of newly printed weapons.
The captain recognized her, “What the hell! You’re that insane woman they’ve been looking for.”
“I assure you, Captain, I’m lucid,” Amelia said. “I’m an MDF officer. They drugged me when I wouldn’t go along with their plans.”
“What p
lans?” demanded the captain.
Amelia paused for a second. “Their plans to blow up the domes.”
“No shit,” Daniels said. He took a moment to process this. He put the pieces together in his mind. “Oh shit!” he said again. “That dome, that dome was destroyed intentionally?”
“It was,” I said.
“And now you’re helping us?” Daniels asked, looking at Amelia.
“That’s why I’m here,” she said. Captain Daniels and Amelia sized each other up. The captain appeared hesitant to accept help from a fugitive.
I stepped in. “If it weren’t for Amelia, all of those people in the nine o’clock dome would be dead.”
“What do you mean?”
“Captain, we knew they were coming, so we set off the alarms,” I said. I explained how Kevin set up the pressure alerts.
“Why wait to involve us?” The captain said. “It would have been nice if you’d kept us in the loop.”
“Two reasons. First, we didn’t know who we could trust. We still don’t. And second, we couldn’t put Amelia at risk. The MDF means business and she’s confident if she went public, they’d take her out.”
Amelia passed the captain a crossbow and he turned it over in his hands. “What do you need us to do?” he asked.
“The goal is to get our engineers into the Alamo and take over their engineering control center. To do this, we need the mob in the Alamo to distract the MDF.”
“What if they start shooting?” said one of the officers.
Avro stepped forward. He wore his SAR jacket, giving him the look of a badass military commander. “Then we’re at war,” he said
“First things first,” I said. “You’ll need to park squad cars over the Alamo’s pressure barrier. We need that open long enough to get the colonists in.”
“Where will you be?” Captain Daniels asked.
“We’ll be hiding inside the mob,” I answered.
“One more question before I talk to the rest of my boys,” he said. “How the hell are you going to convince the mob to storm the Alamo?”
“With this,” Avro said, holding up his phone and showing the officer the video of the underground dome and telling them where it was.
The captain took the phone and studied the images, “Holy shit, boys!” the captain said to his fellow officers. “You gotta see this!”
After seeing the underground complex, the officers agreed to help coax the mob into the Alamo. With an artificially generated storm and a clear agenda to eliminate the colonists, the officers had all the evidence they needed.
Captain Daniels requested more of Amelia’s weapons, and we assured him the printers were creating them by the dozens. We were doing everything we could to even the fight.
Kevin, Avro, Amelia and I took the panel truck to the pavilion and pulled up next to the protesters. There were over a thousand people there, screaming at central control.
I slid my phone from my watch and called Jackson. Jackson sat in the Central Control tower, two hundred feet above the pavilion.
“Jackson, do you have the media?” I yelled, loud enough to hear myself over the crowd outside the car.
“I have Mr. Bowden right here,” Jackson said, pointing the camera at Bowden.
“That’s some footage your friend got,” Bowden said, leaning into view. “I can’t believe that place is for real!”
“A pleasure to have you on our side, Robert,” I said.
“We’re good to go here, just got word, the squad cars are in position,” Avro said. “Release the footage when you’re ready.”
A moment later, the LED displays around the pavilion lit up.
“Breaking News!” the displays read. “Alamo hiding massive underground paradise. Could this be the only safe place on Mars?”
The crowd went silent, some staring at the holovisions, others watching on their phones or staring into space, watching the video on smart lenses.
The video transitioned to an interview between Jackson and Mr. Bowden.
“So, Jackson,” Bowden began, “where did you get this footage?”
“From one of the colony’s engineers,” Jackson answered. “Apparently, he stumbled across a back door while out on a GOD.”
Kevin smiled and elbowed me in the ribs. “It’s catching on,” he said.
The camera focused on Bowden’s face, his eyes probing Jackson. “So what do you suggest we do?”
Jackson looked directly at the camera. “Get to the Alamo and get to that underground colony! The Alamo is guarded. You may face resistance. We have people in the pavilion passing out shields and our police force will provide cover. Be careful, but get down there, and make it fast, before other domes collapse!”
The colonists in the pavilion looked confused, but Kevin jumped out of the SUV, opened the trunk and yelled. “Shields and spears. Get ‘em while they’re hot!”
Colonists grabbed the makeshift weapons and began running in the direction of the Alamo. The four of us ran to the very center of the mob.
It was like running with the bulls. People swarmed around us, pushing and shoving, trying to reach the northern channel leading to the Alamo.
We arrived in minutes to find two police cars parked over the Alamo’s forty-foot wide pressure barrier. The police officers were arguing with the guards at the Alamo’s security checkpoint.
The guards noticed the crowd and one of them yelled, “Shit! Shit! Shit!” as he realized the mob was coming right at him. The guard picked up his radio and yelled. “Fuck the cops! We need this barrier up now!” Within the Alamo, several MDF soldiers took up position.
When the guard put down the radio, the barrier began to close. The barrier was a double door with one section rising from the ground and another dropping down from above. The lower barrier connected with the police cruisers first, lifting them off the ground until the descending barrier connected with the roofs, crushing the police cars like soda cans.
When our mob arrived at the barrier, a three-foot space remained, held open by the crushed police cruisers. Colonists poured over the barrier, running aimlessly inside the Alamo. Kevin and I climbed over the barrier, followed by Avro, who turned back to give Amelia a hand, but she just shook her head, hopping over, as if doing parkour. Captain Daniels took position behind one of the squad cars. I gave him a quick salute as I hit the surface on the other side.
Somewhere inside the Alamo, an order was given. The two guards at the gate reached for their weapons, but before they could fire, two police officers rose up from behind a squad car, firing a bolt into each guard. A dozen other cop cars pulled up to the barriers, and the officers poured out, following the rioting colonists into the Alamo. Two officers ran over to the guard station, grabbing the fallen guards’ weapons. They began pouring fire into the Alamo.
All around us, bullets impacted Avro’s fiber-plastic shields, but even so, several men and women fell to the ground. A dozen cops took up position and began covering fire. Bolts and bullets rained into the Alamo, hindering the MDF’s resistance. The police picked off a dozen MDF soldiers in the Alamo’s pavilion. Colonists poured over the bodies, picking up weapons and carrying them with them.
Twenty more MDF soldiers took defensive positions near the entrance, exchanging fire with the police taking cover behind the barrier. The colonists fought back, tossing spears at the soldiers. We outnumbered the MDF twenty to one.
Behind us, MDF reinforcements approached from the spaceport, flanking the cops. The officers climbed over the barrier, taking positions inside the Alamo as soldiers pushed a wave of colonists back into the channels.
Inside the Alamo, MDF soldiers pulled their fallen comrades into cover.
I looked toward the tram station leading to the Presidio. It was still open! Why didn’t they close off the Presidio when they saw the broadcast? Then I realized what they were doing. “They’re evacuating the Alamo’s population into the Presidio!” I yelled.
Amelia looked confused, “Why the hell
wouldn’t they stay in their condos?”
We watched as the last of the Alamo’s wealthy residents scurried into the Presidio’s tram station like mice chased by a cat.
Something had changed. It was too quiet. On the balconies above, several soldiers began taking up positions. “Get Captain Daniels on the line. Have his officers clear the way to the tram station.”
“Roger that,” Avro said, reaching for his phone.
“Kevin, get these people to the Presidio. We’ll focus on getting to engineering.”
“What’s the hurry? Don’t we need the distraction?” Kevin replied, running alongside us.
“Look at the soldiers, Kevin! Look what they’re wearing!” I pointed up to the nearest balcony. Several soldiers ran between the pillars and it was clear they were wearing spacesuits.
“Oh my God,” Amelia said, noticing the same thing. “There’re going to decompress the Alamo!”
“Oh shit!” Kevin yelled, turning to the mob. “Get into that station!” he yelled as loudly as he could. “That’s the Presidio!”
Like a flock of birds, a swarm of people sprinted after Kevin as he ran towards the tube car station. The colony’s police officers had cleared the way and several MDF soldiers lay on the ground. But before the mob reached the entrance to the station, a large steel barrier began sliding shut from the left and right.
“They’re shutting the doors!” someone yelled. I looked around. It wasn’t just the tram station being sealed off. It was everywhere!
“Quick, get something to brace it with!” Kevin yelled, standing at the entrance.
“Use this!” a man said, carrying one of Avro’s 3D printed shields. People flew into the structure as Kevin held the shield in place. The mechanical doors whined in protest at the interruption.
“Hurry!” Kevin said. “Anyone left outside will suffocate!”
Hundreds of people poured through the barrier into the station, many of them holding MDF assault rifles salvaged from fallen soldiers. Bullets ricocheted off the walls all around the opening, and the officer to Kevin’s right fell to the ground. Kevin slipped through the barrier, taking cover with another officer, who paused to reload a captured rifle.