by T. K. Malone
“You spied on me?”
“No, no, no,” Charm said, shaking his head. “Monitored you; there’s a difference. Had to be ready, Clay. Had to prepare for the big bang—the one that started the new world, not the original one. Though you would have probably failed to make the cut, I found I actually cared for you. Odd that.”
Connor strode around the room, his fingers trailing over the cameras and along the desk, behind which he went and sat down. “I’m starting to remember,” he muttered.
“I know.”
“You—I know I knew you.”
“And Teah?”
“That she rescued me.”
Charm nodded.
“It’s only fragments. Bits and pieces. I remember the hospital—that’s where I know you from. I remember being carried away by Teah.”
“And?”
“Just a pipe, a big pipe…and falling.”
“And?”
“A vagrant. I remember a vagrant.”
Charm smiled. “I’ve heard him called a lot of things, but a vagrant? Never a vagrant.”
“Who?”
“His name was Lester.”
17
Zac’s Story
Strike time: minus 60 minutes
Location: Black City
Zac watched Connor leave, his gaze lingering even after the door had clicked shut behind him. That brother of mine, he thought over and over, wanting to run after him, to pull him back, to protect him as an older brother should. Lifting a glass from the sink, he grabbed his towel and wiped it dry.
“You worried?” asked Billy Flynn.
“You stupid?” countered Zac, “because if you ain’t worried, you’re a dick.”
The hunched drunk fell off his stool and Billy Flynn sighed. Grabbing him by the scruff of the neck, Billy dragged him to the front door and threw him into the alley out front. He came back in, pulling the door closed behind him. “We done?” he asked.
“Done, Billy,” Zac said, an edge of finality in his tone, and perhaps a hint of something more. Billy Flynn shot the door bolts and went back to the counter.
“One for the road, Zac?” he asked, but Zac was staring out the window.
The hunched drunk was staggering around in the dim dusk light, but like he was being punched by dozens of tiny fists. He twirled and lurched, then spun around and slumped down, as if only the jabs had been keeping him upright. It took a moment for Zac to understand what was happening, to remember the dance he’d seen so many times before, but when he did he sprang into action.
“Billy, they’re here,” he shouted as he ducked and grabbed an automatic. The big man reacted with the smooth assurance of a man used to surprises and vaulted the counter, staying low as he grabbed a gun for himself.
“CGIs?” Billy asked, but Zac knew no answer was needed. Central Government Intelligence—Prime’s own men in a city supposedly owned by one Josiah Charm. Zac grunted.
“Guess we’re gonna find out if we chose the wrong side.”
“Aye, guess we are,” and the silence swiftly drifted in.
Zac pulled out a drawer concealed beneath the bar. “This should keep them entertained.” He pressed a small, round button and an LCD screen lit up green. Setting its timer to “5”, he looked over at Billy.
“Make it fun,” Billy said, his voice hushed. Zac adjusted the display to “3”. Billy grinned.
The faintest of clicks came from the front door, and they both nodded, two distinct snaps coming from their guns—safeties off. Zac’s heart pumped, its beat steady, his body primed, taught and waiting.
Shattering glass erupted into the silence, then the thump of boots and the smash of a hydraulic jack ripped at the door, forcing it open. Billy held up five fingers, then four, three, two and they both lifted their guns. The nozzles burst into life, spitting death at the black-clad intruders. There were four. They fell. Then there were more, and they too fell, and a lull descended over the bar. Billy turned to Zac, an excitement in his friend’s eyes, its return something Zac cherished.
“Go,” Zac shouted, and Billy ran for the back of the bar as Zac squeezed off another burst of bullets, then he too crouched and ran. Billy had paused in the doorway at the end of the counter, letting fly a salvo toward the front of the bar, cracking into its wall, tearing at its buckled window frames and taking out the lights. Zac tapped his friend’s thigh on his way past, and Billy’s gun went silent as he followed.
The kitchen was a mass of stainless steel, a staircase leading up in one corner and a bolted, welded-steel door to the alley out back—the sign of an edgy occupant—a definite no go.
“Two minutes,” Zac hissed, and they ran for the stairs just as gunfire erupted in the bar.
Straight up one, then onto a second flight, and Billy was still close on Zac’s heels. At the top, Zac leaned against the wall and signaled for Billy to pass. The big man bounded along a short hallway and kicked open a fire door at its end. After a quick check of the fire escape outside, Billy shouted, “Clear!”.
Zac pointed his gun down into the stairwell; two bursts of rapid fire, then three and four.
He joined Billy just as his friend dropped to one knee and aimed his gun at the building opposite. A rapid burst of fire and the glass in one of its windows shattered, a body hurtling back into its room’s darkness. “That it?” he rasped.
“I’ll find out for you,” Billy grunted and slipped out onto the balcony, hunching low as he ran along, jumped onto its parapet and leaped off. Zac followed, soon sailing through the air after Billy. Behind him, the whole building exploded into a ball of flame that plumed up into the evening sky.
The blast shoved him against a brick wall, the elevator shaft of the next building, and he crumpled into a heap at its base.
“Overshot there,” shouted Billy.
Zac managed a glance at Billy before a cloud of black soot and ash fell toward them and he snapped his eyes tight shut, holding his breath. Billy tugged him to his feet and they felt their way in the gloom across a flat roof to the next fire escape. Just as he was swinging himself onto it, the distinct sound of propellers came to his still-ringing ears.
“Drone,” he shouted, but Billy was already firing. Zac slid down the ladder to the platform below, crouched and took aim himself, thankful Billy had already winged it. It was listing badly, so as the big man came down the ladder Zac finished the drone off. Billy kicked at another fire escape door.
Zac winked at him, his eyes on fire, his breath now heavy and his mouth grinning.
“Locked?” Billy barked, but Zac had already reached under the platform and ripped out a crow bar, duct tape still stuck to its shaft.
He glanced down into the dimly lit alleyway below. “Shit,” he muttered, realizing that the CGIs had withdrawn, but the wrong way, blocking the route Zac had intended taking. “Shit, shit, shit,” he muttered as he set to and jimmied the fire escape door, wrenching it open.
Inside was another short hallway, from the end of which a flight of stairs led down. They clattered down into an abandoned shop, and Zac allowed himself a small smile. There was no sign of the CGIs.
“I’m beginning to get the feeling you had this all planned, Zac.”
“You better believe it,” Zac growled and ducked into a narrow passageway that led off into the dark. He stopped by a doorway about halfway along and pushed it ajar, then slipped through. Billy squeezed through behind him, silent in the gloom as Zac went over to one wall and grabbed a black leather jacket from a hook. He threw it to Billy. “Try that on for size.”
“Feels good, eh, Big Man?” said Zac as he put on his own.
“Feels good, Zac.”
Zac flipped a switch on the wall, and a dim light came on. He pointed to a rack of guns, but Billy’s eyes were already fixed on something else. Zac watched his old friend drool as he told him, “Reckon we’ve got about three minutes till they find out where we are. I suggest you help yourself to a few guns and one of them there bikes.”
&nbs
p; “Full of surprises today, aren’t you?” Billy said as he grabbed a couple of guns before returning his eyes to feast on the pair of black scrambler bikes, a grin spreading across his face. Zac slipped a knife into each boot and filled his pockets with spare magazines before grabbing a couple of guns, a handgun for his waistband and a semi-automatic in his hand. Lastly, he donned a black full-face helmet, then noticed Billy staring at the back of his leather jacket.
“Citizen?” Billy asked.
“Let’s just say it’s a new chapter,” Zac muttered as Billy grinned and helped himself to a machine gun and ammunition.
“So, we gotta plan?”
Zac kicked the stand up on one of the bikes. “Sure, we gotta plan,” and he rolled it backwards.
Billy laughed then followed him with his own bike. Once they’d started the engines, Zac winked at Billy, then slipped his visor down, fished in his jacket and brought out a small transmitter. One click and the wall in front of them exploded outward and Zac revved his bike and dropped the clutch, shooting through all the dust and smoke and out into the alleyway. He didn’t look back, knew Billy would be right behind him as he scattered CGI men in all directions.
They flew toward Seventy-Sixth Street, not quite how Zac had seen his escape going, he’d not anticipated the CGIs coming from the rundown side of the city, or their retreat that same way. Still, all plans had to be fluid, but he’d hoped to stay off the main streets.
The mindless morons of the grid were obliviously wandering across the mouth of the alley, clearly nothing on their minds but getting home for the night. As he neared, Zac pulled out his revolver and fired into the air, that and the whine of the scramblers sending them diving for cover, and they burst out onto Seventy-Sixth Street. Zac swung a left toward the river. Gun back in his waistband, he opened the throttle wide, expecting the stiffs to react first, the drones not far behind. The scream of tires told him he was right. He glanced back, a ways behind Billy. There was one…no, three stiff cars, their golden sirens blazing, but they were no match for the bikes. He thought fast. The drones couldn’t be outrun, and they’d learn with the chase, so new routes cascaded through his mind, the wastelands by the river his target. The first drone appeared above, peppering the street beside him with gunfire as he weaved through the auto-cars, making it hard for the drones to let off their shots. Then Billy sped past and turned toward the center of the city. Zac quickly guessed why.
The drones had AI, and so they’d learn, begin to anticipate, Zac reasoned as he followed Billy’s tail. The only way out of this was to be completely random. And Billy’s route certainly turned out to be that, getting off rounds of fire at the drones when they got the chance. The streets blurred into one another as the shops and restaurants flashed by: Free World Burger Bar, Free World Bank, Free World Cinema; black, gold; black, gold. Every time the drones took up position, Billy changed direction. Every time the stiffs got on their tail, he shook them off. Somehow they made it to the river, its embankment a straight road out of the city, the river glistening oil-like in the dusk light beside it. Zac drew a breath before looking up ahead.
The drones were waiting. Billy slowed, holding back, baiting them, then did a wheelie as he shot forward and the drones opened fire. Zac let out a scream as he raced toward the hail of bullets, swerving, ducking, yelling at the top of his voice. Billy cleared the curb and pulled his bike around then skidded along the sidewalk, just missing the railings that lined the riverbank, Zac right behind him.
A quick glance back, and Zac saw the drones were regrouping, speeding after them, but Billy was already off down the sidewalk, scattering pedestrians as he gunned it hard. Two stiff cars swerved out of a side street, trying to block their path, but Billy swerved, Zac hard on his taillight, and somehow they squeezed between them. With a clear road ahead, Billy briefly turned, the machine gun in his hand, spraying fire at the cars and up at the drones. Zac raced past him, leveling his own gun now at a checkpoint ahead, the red spit of his bullets raking through the night toward it.
Their combined fire smashed into the booths, splinters of debris and bloody body parts flying, but the lowered barriers remained intact, the road blocked, something Zac had already anticipated. Aimed at keeping people out of the city, little on the inner side stood in the way of getting onto the sidewalk again. As bodies leaped aside, he aimed his bike through the gap between the barrier and the booth, squeezing in his arms as he gunned the throttle. He felt his jacket scrape along the booth’s shelf, then he was out onto a rougher surface as the sound of stiff cars skidding to a halt came from behind. A quick look back as Billy’s bigger bulk peeled away a piece of debris from the booth, and he saw the stiffs jumping out of their cars, leveling their guns. The unmade road on this side slowed them both as bullets whizzed past them, but they ducked between heaps of rubble and out of the line of fire, where it was safe to stop for a moment. Billy pointed up at the sky, at drones now circling much higher. They both knew that meant only one thing: heat seekers.
Billy ripped his helmet off. “Time for some fun, Zackie Boy,” he shouted, and Zac couldn’t help but smile as he took off his own. Billy jumped off his bike, unscrewing the fuel tank before letting it topple to the ground. He swung his leg over the back of Zac’s scrambler and whispered, “Wait for it,” as he sat.
The whoosh of the first missile was closely followed by another, then another. Billy flicked his lighter and tossed it as Zac gunned the scrambler, its rear wheel spinning and slewing for a moment before it gripped and the bike sped off. Billy’s bike blew up, both men flinching at the sound, but then they laughed as it was followed by three more explosions in rapid succession. “Hell, yeah!” Zac shouted and aimed straight for a deep ditch, and they plunged into its obscuring darkness.
Its base was filled with dank, stagnant water, the bike kicking up and spraying its foulness everywhere. At the end of the ditch they came to a black sewer tunnel, but they were already into it when two more whooshes streaked from above, the missiles pounding into the ditch at the mouth of the tunnel just as Zac turned on the bike’s headlight. The blast had been near, though, its fury blowing them forward, tossing the bike and its riders like matchwood. Zac somersaulted through the air, bouncing off the sewer’s wall and tumbling back to join Billy and the bike as they skidded down the pipe. They finally came to a halt in a painful heap.
Zac groaned and pushed himself to his feet, testing his arms and legs and flexing his neck, then pulled Billy up.
“You cool?” he asked.
“Better than perfection. Better than that heap of trash,” and he looked down at the bike as its light flickered out, plunging them into darkness. “You?”
“Do you know, Billy, I think I might have crushed my bloody smokes.” Zac reached down and fiddled with the stricken bike, at last pulling a flashlight from its seat’s pocket. He switched it on. “We’d have had two flashlights if you hadn’t been so careless with your own bike, Billy Flynn,” and he pushed on down the sewer as fast as the flashlight would allow.
“We had nine lives this morning; bet we’re down a few already,” Billy said as he splashed behind Zac.
“And the bombs haven’t started dropping yet.”
Zac knew these sewers, toxic from their heady mix of industrial spillage and dumped chemicals, the ones in which Connor had nearly lost his life before Teah had found him. They’d once run right under the Black City, but they’d been plugged to stop infiltration by their own domestic terrorists, before Oster Prime had eradicated the towns and villages they hid in. All they were good for now was as a dumping ground, turning the land above noxious.
It was a place of denial, hidden from the few dozen square miles of the city’s urban utopia by picture glass in the windows of those tower blocks that faced it, pictures depicting green pastures and forests. Even the air was filtered, so its insidiousness couldn’t be tasted or smelled. A hideous land that stretched out from the city more than two miles in every direction.
“Should we
be, you know, legging it?” Billy asked after a while.
“What? Down here?”
“I thought it might be wise, you know, given what’s liable to happen soon.”
“If we stay down here too long, we die—the air’s too foul. On the other hand, if we don’t get out and safe fast enough, we still die. Fate, Billy, fate has its tender hands cupping our balls as we speak. The only question is: will she stroke or squeeze, eh? Stroke or squeeze?”
“Now, Zackie Boy, I’m not sure which one I should be rooting for. Not sure at all.”
18
Zac’s story
Strike time: minus 30 minutes
Location: Wastelands surrounding the Black City
The flashlight’s beam flitted around a large concrete chamber. It picked out a rusted iron ladder bolted to its side that led up to what looked like a black hatch at its top. A narrow steel walkway circled the chamber, along which Zac edged forward. He climbed the rungs, the flashlight now between his teeth. Billy followed.
At the top, Zac lifted and slid open the hatchway an inch or two and immediately ducked back down, waiting, listening. The soft sound of whirring propellers broke the still of the evening, and Zac grabbed the flashlight from his mouth, switched it off and cursed.
“Give them a little clue, did you?” Billy whispered.
“A tiny flash,” Zac muttered, trying to make light of his error but kicking himself all the same. He slid the hatch back farther, grinding on the ground above. The whirring grew fainter, until the quiet became complete. Zac drank in the cool of the early evening air outside as it drifted in through the hatch. He climbed up another rung and poked his head out.