by Andy Graham
Ray whipped his head back as a secondary blast sent flames rolling across the ceiling. Wasp-like fragments of metal fizzed across the chamber. The main door had shielded the friends from the worst of the first explosion, but they were unlikely to survive another one.
“That wasn’t ours, was it?” yelled Nascimento, shielding his eyes as sparks rained down.
Ray shook his head. The ringing in his ears cranked up to a higher pitch. Through the shimmering air, he could just about make out the small grey cube plugged into the column. “It’s not connected right. It should’ve popped by now.”
Another explosion rattled the walkway under his feet. Ray sprinted towards the nearest set of steps, the gangway creaking underfoot. The metal swayed as he eased forwards. A bolt on the wall shifted. Ray froze. The steel held. Below them, a cauldron of fire raged. Jagged forks of multicoloured lightning darted upwards. Something clipped Ray’s hand and the bolt bounced off the walkway.
“Watch out!” Nascimento yelled.
The metal under Ray’s feet groaned as a second fastening burst free in a cloud of stone splinters. “Shit. No.” Ray back-pedalled, clawing at the walls. His hands slid off the stone as the metal disappeared from under his feet. He seemed to hang there for an age, weightless, then he was falling towards the flames, his own wordless cry of anger and fear shrill in his ears. His neck cracked backwards. His fall stopped. Ray stared at the red chaos below his feet, at the walls either side of him, at the soles of Nascimento’s boots on the twisted walkway above him.
“Not. Going. Nowhere,” the big man grunted. One hand was clamped around the rough material of Ray’s backpack, the other clung onto a metal slide pole that bent and warped in the heat. The veins on his neck strained as he drove his body upwards. Bit by bit, he dragged Ray back up onto the walkway. Both legionnaires collapsed, Nascimento working his fingers, Ray sucking in mouthfuls of the burned air. Around them the roar of the fire got louder. A double crack of blue-green lightning skewered the ceiling.
Nascimento nudged him. A black-garbed figure was picking its way across the remains of a steel walkway that circled the central column, inching towards the grey cube. “What’s he doing?” Nascimento yelled.
“Our job. Leave nothing behind, remember?”
The legionnaire, Hamid, had a cord looped around his arm. Another legionnaire held the opposite end, body braced between the walls of a corridor leading onto the walkway and freedom. Hamid’s gear was there, too. His pack was stacked straps up, facing away from the wall, rifle ready to run with. His meticulous attention to detail had earned him various nicknames amongst the Rivermen, the 10th Legion. Some of those names were almost complimentary.
Hamid stretched for the cube and the cables. Three went in smoothly but he couldn’t get the leverage to push in the last. He tightened the cord around his arm, leant out farther. The toes of his boots curled round the metal edges. The second legionnaire pulled back, feet slipping as the rope tautened. Somehow, Hamid tapped the last cable into the socket with the tips of his fingernails. Sparks shot out of the cube. Cables burnt out like gunpowder trails. The computer bank the cube was plugged into shuddered. Lights flickered on and off as smoke seeped out of sockets. Hamid wrenched the device out and thrust it into a belt pouch.
“Always trust earnest Ernest!” Ray clapped his friend on the shoulder and, for a moment, the turmoil raging around the legionnaires paused. The flames below sucked in on themselves, as if draining through a plug hole. Nascimento’s answering smile vanished as a hail of rivets clattered off his helmet. One of the huge joists above them screamed and twisted along its length. Bricks and dust rained down into the gathering inferno at the base of the chamber.
Ray’s stomach flipped. “Hamid!”
The metal beam came spinning down in a hail of stone, crashing through ladders and walkways. It missed the gangway Hamid was perched on. He scrambled to his feet and sprinted for the exit. The cord wrapped around his arm got entangled in the falling steel. It whipped the legionnaire up in a graceful arc, slamming him head first into wall. Hamid’s limp body was pulled into the red-hot whirlpool below. The end of the rope pirouetted after him.
Ray stared into the flames, struggling to make sense of the last few seconds. Hamid was going to appear on the end of the girder emerging from the red chaos. He always had a solution. Always. Ray looked at the column. No cube, no cables, no walkways. No Hamid, just a dark smear on the wall where his head had hit the bricks. Another explosion rocked the room. A second girder creaked. Ray snapped a command at Nascimento. They had to get out of here.
Through the heat of the fire he could feel the eyes of Hamid’s partner. Ray met the glare for a second and indicated to fall back. The other figure didn’t move, crimson flickers reflecting off the helmet visor. Ray signalled again and Corporal Brooke backed into the corridor. The legionnaire stooped to pick up Hamid’s pack and rifle before hurrying into the darkness.
2
Hallowtide
Klaxons pierced the night. Voices. Warning. Shouting. Explosions rumbled underground, one sending Ray to his knees. The columns of fire behind him and Nascimento illuminated the entire facility so brightly there was almost no need for the spotlights scouring the ground. Twice the men ducked behind huge barrel piles to avoid the patrols swarming through the compound; once they got away with it, the other time they were quick but brutal.
The older chimneys on the edge of the compound were made of the red brick so typical of the country of Mennai, Ailan’s neighbour. Apart from the faded white letters on their sides, the chimneys were as different as the central ones were similar: a mixture of tall and short, wide and thin, with ladders, foot holes or steps. They looked as if they had been designed by a committee who had heard of chimneys but had never actually seen one. As the men approached, two legionnaires emerged from the shadows.
“What happened to you?” Orr asked, bushy eyebrows pulled down tight.
Before Ray could answer, they heard footsteps running towards them. The squad spun as one. A helmeted figure appeared out of the darkness, framed by the distant glow and carrying two rifles. The shape dropped to one knee and brought one rifle up to its shoulder.
“It’s Brooke.” Captain Aalok’s voice was a low buzz in the night. “Where’s Hamid?” he asked the approaching legionnaire.
“Dead.” Brooke pushed past Aalok. A hand flashed out of the darkness and gloved knuckles slammed into Ray’s jaw. His mouth filled with the warm tang of blood.
“If you’d done your job, we’d all be here now.” The face under the helmet contorted with anger.
“It was me, Brooke,” said Nascimento. “I must’ve dislodged the last cable. Either that or the gear was off.”
“Daddy gonna buy your way out of this problem, too, Nasty?”
“Don’t call me that. Use my name.”
“Fuck your name.” Brooke spat in the dust and rounded on Ray, blue eyes glittering. “You were team leader, Corporal Franklin. It was your responsibility.”
Ray caught the hand as it whistled towards his face again. “One free shot, Brooke. No more.”
Brooke pushed him away and stalked off to the fallen packs. She pulled out a flask. “‘In and out in an hour. No one gets hurt, no one dies’. Hamid was the best of all of us and we let him down.” She struggled to keep her voice under control as she jabbed the flask towards the rest of the squad. “He did what he always did — cleared up everyone else’s mess. Only this time it cost him his life ’cos you two rooks got sloppy. I knew this promotion was beyond you, Franklin. We all did.”
She spat a mouthful of water on the ground. It gleamed like mercury in the moonlight, sinking into the brick dust. Another klaxon joined in the braying.
“Getting closer.” Orr.
“I should feed you each other’s balls for this,” Brooke hissed.
“Not now, Brooke,” said Aalok. “Let’s move.”
Brooke stuffed her bottle away. Within seconds they were moving, Captain Aal
ok on point, Orr following with Hamid’s gear.
As Brooke stalked after them, Nascimento grabbed Ray’s sleeve. “Don’t mention it.”
“What?” Ray answered, frowning. That ringing in his ears was worse since Brooke had clocked him.
“For catching you back there.”
“Thanks.”
“Like I said. Don’t mention it. Just remember, you owe me.”
Ray took up his position at the end of the line as they crept between the chimneys. The routine of watch, wait and move calmed him. It had a simplicity of purpose he craved more and more. The squad made good time, but everywhere he looked he could see Hamid’s last fall. The image was projected down the walls of the chimneys, through the sky, along the giant pipes that arched over the roads to form gates. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen colleagues die but losing Hamid was like losing a part of himself. Was Brooke right, could it have played out differently?
An explosion lit up the sky, turning the clouds the colour of a bruise in the moonlight. Shadows cut those same clouds into faces from the Hallowtide stories of Ray’s youth. Staring down at him were ghouls, murderers, ghosts and thieves. There were men and women who had been trampled into the mud as they tried to protect an earlier version of Ray’s Town. Old Man Taille, the grandfather who made Ray feel like his brain had a splinter in it, loved the story of Greenfields, when the silver-haired Militia of Axeford had ridden again to save Tear. Stann always told it at Hallowtide with ‘an extra serving of red limbs and purple guts for the kids.’
Nascimento nudged him. “You got your thinking face on again. Knock it off before Brooke does it for you.”
Aalok signalled. The squad dropped. A jeep thudded past their hiding place. It disappeared into the dust, accompanied by the throaty rattle of its diesel engine. The squad moved on. Ray had never believed the Hallowtide myths, not even as a child. His mother had made sure of that. But the questions knocking at the edge of his mind about what he was required to do as a legionnaire were getting louder. Now he didn’t know what to believe.
Would he ever find out the real reason why they’d been sent here tonight, the real reason for Hamid’s death? Would he ever find out the reason for any of the missions they’d been on, like New Town, his first mission as a fully-fledged legionnaire, that was tattooed into his mind? Would he discover why so many of his friends and colleagues had lost lives or limbs? Had tonight’s gear been sabotaged? If so, why and by who?
He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to force the memories out of his head. Tomorrow. Deal with it tomorrow. Hamid’s sacrifice would be worthwhile. It had to be. The squad picked up their pace again as they made their way through the largest Hallowtide bonfire Ray would ever see.
The legionnaires broke into a run. “Not a bonfire, a pyre,” he told himself. “The most spectacular funeral pyre someone could have wished for.” Hamid would have been flattered by such a send-off. He’d have made sure there were fire extinguishers nearby, though, just in case.
The chaos made it easy to get to their destination. They ducked under pipes and leopard crawled past the occasional sentry. Getting up to the walkways where they were to be extracted was a different matter. Not every chimney had steps and those that did were too well lit. Instead, they scrambled up the service rungs on one of the older structures.
Ray was the last up. As he climbed the winds buffeted him, swirling the clouds from the chimneys into twisting eddies. From the squad’s vantage point on the walkways, they could see the ongoing fight against the blaze. It was spreading rapidly without the fire trucks Orr and Aalok had disabled. Chimney after chimney had been turned into steel and brick volcanoes. Flames danced around the raging midnight sun at the centre of the power plant.
“How long, Brooke?” asked Aalok, his voice whipped away by the rising wind. She held up five fingers, then clenched them into a fist she pointed at Ray. He massaged his jaw. He was going to struggle to eat for days.
They’d been taught in EBT that technique would always beat strength. “Balls to that, strength beats strength,” Nascimento had replied. Soon after, they’d had to peel Brooke off him. She’d almost broken his arm in their first training session. “I underestimated her,” Nascimento had confessed later. “It was like trying to wrestle my own shadow.”
“Brothers and bullies,” had been Brooke’s simple explanation. “Don’t like either.”
Nascimento sat against the wall with his eyes closed, snatching as much rest as he could. Ray envied him and all the other legionnaires that could fall asleep at will. His own sleep had always been troubled by recurring nightmares he couldn’t make sense of: babbling voices, thirsty plastic tubes, chipped white-steel baths and ghosts with needles for fingers. It was almost a habit now. He’d wake sweating in the small hours. The images would dance in the dark before he could bury them again. Exhaustion was the only cure.
He scanned the hills for their chopper. Orr was taking a leak on the side of the chimney, straining to hit the flashing rim lights. A slurring accent and scuff of boots pulled Ray’s head round. “You’re shitting me,” Orr said and pissed on his boots.
A maintenance patrol emerged from the heavy smoke. Both groups had been hidden from each other until the last moment. Two tired, scared men found themselves facing a heavily armed squad of Ailan legionnaires. Orr swore then cursed when he caught himself in his zip. The men fled, clouds nipping at their heels. Ray scrabbled to his feet seconds before Aalok bellowed his orders.
He sped round the curved walkway. Skidded on the treacherous surface. The guard was already halfway down the ramp to a connecting platform between towers. The engineer misjudged the turn. The momentum of his caddy-cart slammed it into the side of the walkway. The man yanked it back. The cart tipped over and slid down the ramp, dragging the engineer with it. He tugged at the straps of his bag caught around a handle. The man was trapped. Screaming for help.
Something sizzled past Ray’s helmet. He sprawled on the floor. More shots rang out. Single ones. Ray had been right, the guard’s rifle was old. The crash of gunfire competed with the rapid thud of the chopper that had just arrived. The cart careered down the ramp, inching the engineer towards the edge. Aalok yelled. Ray slipped down the wet ramp towards the man as the guard fired once more.
The shot flew high and wide, swallowed up by the oily clouds. The cart spun to a standstill. It teetered on the edge of the platform. Unable to stop his slide, Ray careered into it. The cart tipped over the edge. It hit a support strut, ripping it free of the chimney. The engineer had just got both hands around the railings as the platform listed to one side. The jolt forced his fingers free. He plunged into the darkness, eyes wide in disbelief.
“Move, Franklin!” Aalok.
Ray dragged himself up and threw himself into a forward roll as the guard fired again. There was another thunder of gunfire as Ray came out of the movement. The bullet clipped Ray’s helmet. The glancing impact and the moving platform threw him backwards into the railings. Something cracked in his lower back. A bolt of pain skewered through his legs to his toes.
A second support strut wrenched itself loose. The guard’s rifle tumbled out of his hands. Both men, Mennai security guard and Ailan legionnaire, threw themselves flat on the platform and sank their fingers through the steel grid. The metal screamed as the platform twisted back and forth in the winds. The men slid farther down the grid, scrabbling to regain their grip, legs kicking at free air.
Over the thud of the chopper, the panicked noises from the guard and the red pain in his back, Ray heard someone calling his name. A rope hit the top of his helmet. He wrapped it round his arm and eased his weight upwards.
“Please,” called the guard, “please.” Tears streaked down his cheeks. “Don’t leave me here! I’m begging you. I only took this job so I could feed my granddaughter. Abi’s got no one else. She’s everything to me.” Another connection sprang free. The platform pivoted on the remaining corner. “Don’t let me die.” He held a hand out towards Ra
y.
Someone yelled down from the walkway. Ray grabbed the rope with numb fingers and, with a final arthritic creak, the last connection gave out. The platform spun gracefully as it fell, disappearing in a cloud of dust and noise.
Ray collapsed against the wall of the chimney, chest heaving. He wasn’t sure how he wanted to die, but plummeting to his death was not one of them. He’d had other things in mind when he’d signed up as an enthusiastic yet green sixteen-year-old, brought up on a diet of feast-day war films.
Aalok’s boot stamped down next to him. “You’re an idiot, Franklin! Never hero-roll. It’s a stupid move you only see in movies. You’ve never done it before and I never want to see it again.” He pulled away, scowling down at Ray’s side. “Can you walk?”
Ray struggled to his feet. A pain like breaking glass sent him to his knees. He forced himself up. “Yes, sir.”
“Get him to the chopper, Sub-Corporal.”
Orr grabbed Ray’s arm.
“What are you going to do with him, sir?” Ray asked.
They turned to the small, shivering figure hunched against the wall of the chimney. Wisps of hair around his bald patch fluttered in the wind.
“Like I said, you’re an idiot,” said Aalok, voice strained. “This complicates things. It would’ve been better if you’d let him fall.”
“I don’t know you. I haven’t seen you. I won’t remember you. Just let me live, please. For my granddaughter,” the old man said. His accent wasn’t as slurred or lilting as many of his countrymen, but the similarity to Orr’s was undeniable.
“We can’t kill him now; we just saved him,” Ray said. The searing pain in his back flashed down his legs, driving the air out of his lungs, forcing him double. Aalok hauled him to his feet.