FAST FORWARD: A Science Fiction Thriller

by Darren Wearmouth

  Luke thought back to his previous trip before his drugging. The barn was simple enough, one corridor ran along left side, and he could shoot his way through the glass security doors. The parts of the hall he visited had an odd configuration of a large entrance leading to a warren of small corridors, and a wooden staircase splitting in two directions toward different parts of the upper floor.

  “If both teams make it,” he said. “you lead the assault on the hall. I’ll take one person for support at the barn. If only half of us arrive, we’ll have to do them in turn.”

  “You know if he’s not there we’re in serious trouble?”

  “I can’t imagine he’ll be anywhere else. You said it yourself, he’s an old man and micromanages on a daily basis. Nobody has seen his physical body in years. Worst case scenario, we hide out in one of the historical landmarks and work out our next move. I noticed a couple of castles about forty miles away.”

  “We could hit the facility first?”

  “Capturing him and installing you means we only have one fight. As long as he’s in charge, he’ll throw everything at us.”

  Another meter-high platform loomed out of the dark. Walter climbed onto it, and cut his light. Dark figures followed and gathered by a wall. Luke hauled himself up, grunting with effort to lift his weight and the bomb, and clambered to his feet.

  “Our way to the Timetronic line is up those stairs,” Walter said in a low voice. “Best wait here for the next hour. We don’t want a train seeing us.”

  “Take me for a quick scan,” Luke said. He carefully placed his bomb on the ground and rotated his shoulders. “The rest of you stay here.”

  Walter activated the light on his digital watch, radiating a weak glow ahead. Luke stayed close as they left the platform and climbed a damp escalator. A stale stench hung in the air, and mold spattered the cracked tiles.

  At the top, platform entrances to the left and right were bricked up, and an exit sign pointed directly at a solid wall.

  Walter focused his watch on the right wall’s bottom corner. “The far side comes away in one piece, just give it a firm push. The PCC’s on your left.”

  A dark piece of cloth hung over a small section. Luke handed Walter his rifle, crouched down, and swept it to one side. Weak light streamed through gaps in the mortar at the far end of a short crawlspace. He dropped to his elbows and knees, shuffled through and slowly eased the loose chunk of wall to one side.

  Luminous square blocks lined each side of the rails every few sleepers, bathing the tube line in a green glow, and at the end of the line, lights dazzled above a platform. They had roughly two-hundred meters to cover before reaching the Pool Control Center station, meaning they had to move fast to deprive claycops time to organize a robust defense.

  Luke replaced the wall and edged back. He stood, wiped his hands on his vest and slung his rifle. “Any cameras monitoring the line?”

  “No idea. Perry reckons they usually have someone posted at the station. Does it matter?”

  “Whatever the defenses, we’re hitting them in two hours.”

  They returned downstairs and rejoined the rest of the group.

  While the others chatted about the plan, Luke sat on the edge of the platform and reflected on the last few days. Everything compelled him to attack, not only on a personal level, but for Maria, Lucy, Sir Henry, and others who had suffered misery at the hands of Gideon Lynch. He stared at his watch and willed it toward Eleven o’ clock.

  Chapter 29

  The moment of truth had arrived. Luke leopard-crawled underneath the cloth, careful not to knock the Timetronic pistol out of his thigh holster, and dragged the bomb by his side. He reached the movable section of wall leading to the tube line and glanced over his shoulder.

  All seven of the group lined up behind him, ready for an attack that would change their lives forever, for better or worse. Multiple dim glows flared and cut from their archaic digital watches in silent mode, marking the turn of the hour, and the point where they could safely break cover without fear of their devices giving them away.

  Luke’s heart thumped against his chest as he shoved the rectangular block of bricks to one side, wriggled through into the thin green light, and crept a few meters to his left. He slung his pack and peered at the PCC station distant lights.

  Everyone followed out of the dark space and hugged the tunnel wall. Luke gave a flat-handed gesture toward the opposite side of the track. Helen and the three other members of her team sprinted across the rails and into the shadows on the far side. She looked back at him, waiting for his signal to start the attack.

  Luke took a step forward.

  A deep whine echoed through the tunnel.

  He froze for a moment before squatting.

  “A transport train,” Carl said over his shoulder.

  “How many on board?”

  “Two, maybe three.”

  “Cops or drivers?”

  “How long’s a piece of string?”

  Twin headlights burst through the darkness and wheels hummed and clanked against the rails. Luke had seconds to decide how to deal with this sudden appearance. Frank was arriving at 11:10 and the gate needed to be cleared by then. Waiting for the train to dump its cargo and hoping it’d quickly return to Wandsworth wasn't an option. He raised his radio. “Stay down until it passes. We’ll follow directly behind.”

  “They might see us,” Helen’s said.

  “We can’t beat it to the station. Stand by to move.”

  Somebody else replied, but the increasing noise drowned out the crackly voice. The train’s lights stabbed between both teams as it approached. Blue neon tubing surrounded the front window and side panels of the torpedo shaped engine. It roared past throwing out a blast of warm air and pulled a single transparent carriage behind it. A transport system sat inside, attached to a monitoring screen and large black box.

  The train’s brakes let out a metallic screech. Luke sprung forward and sprinted straight after a bright red bar at the rear end. The straps on his pack dragged on his shoulders, but adrenalin helped carry him forward at pace.

  Initially, the carriage pulled up away from him, but it slowed toward the PCC station, allowing Luke catch up before it shuddered to halt in front a wide concrete platform. Intense floodlights beamed down onto three forklift trucks and a row of green dumpsters. Two security cameras focused down on a massive half-open sliding door, leading to the storage depot. He ducked by the edge of the track, out of view from anyone approaching from the PCC. Carl and Perry skidded next to him. The other five followed shortly after.

  Two mechanical arms pushed the carriage’s side out, and it smoothly rotated up until parallel with the roof, giving it the appearance of an ultramodern burger trailer.

  A pneumatic door at the side of the engine hissed open.

  A man and woman in light blue coveralls, the same as Lucy’s, casually chatted while heading for the closest forklift. The woman climbed behind the wheel. The man stood on the rear counterweight and gripped the overhead guard.

  Luke lowered his rifle, drew his pistol, and checked the change lever to ensure it selected a stun round from the triple feed. He gestured the group to stay down. The forklift’s quiet electric engine whirred as it moved toward the carriage, and to within meters of their location.

  Any closer and the man had a bird’s eye view of them from his lofty perch. Luke took a deep breath, thrust up, and extended his pistol. He aimed at the woman and pulled the trigger. A bright red projectile zipped from his barrel and slammed into her arm. She jerked sideways, grimaced, and slumped over the wheel.

  The forklift veered left, directly toward the middle of the group. The man stared down with a wild-eyed expression and reached for his smart-strap.

  Luke aimed at his chest and fired. The force of the round knocked him off the counterweight, he let out a strained grunt and crashed against the ground. The forklift halted inches from the edge of the platform.

  “Move,” Luke shoute
d and vaulted onto the platform.

  A bald man, dressed in a black rubber suit, lay inside the transport system. He looked similar to the one captured outside The Mega Dive during Timetronic’s raid, but he wasn’t a priority at the moment; Luke had to keep his team on their timeline.

  The casualties slumped and lay in twisted shapes, eyes open, and their limbs quivered. Neither were armed or had the typical heavyset build of a claycop.

  The time on his watch read 11:02. He waved everyone toward the depot entrance, moved to the front, and entered through the partially open sliding door.

  Four large blue screens on the left-hand wall radiated glowing light across a vast underground space. Six columns of industrial shelves, packed with supplies, ran to the far end and stretched up to the ceiling.

  Helen’s team broke right in the direction of the elevated fire escape and disappeared behind the furthest column. Their footsteps pounded up the steps and an external door banged open. If staff in the PCC hadn’t seen what happened at the station, they’d know they were under attack in less than a minute when her group engaged the two claytronic gate guards.

  Luke led Carl, Perry, and Emma straight down the central aisle at a steady run. He wanted to check for Maria, but the size of the depot changed his mind. Perry’s drawing had led him to believe they didn’t have this much distance to cover, and he couldn't risk the primary mission for a personal objective. If Timetronic still held Maria in solitary, taking out the power would at least end her virtual suffering.

  The sound of gunfire crackled outside.

  Hundreds of overhead lights flicked on.

  A deafening high-pitched electronic tone pulsed out at one-second intervals. Luke looked back at Carl and pointed toward a staircase on the right side of the depot.

  Carl nodded, dropped to a prone firing position, and aimed around one of the shelving’s sturdy metal supports.

  The rest of the team continued forward and reached within twenty meters of the corridor. To the left of it, a digital panel above the elevator displayed a revolving downward arrow.

  “Perry, Emma," Luke shouted over the alarm. "Covering fire from here.”

  Both grabbed piles of circuit boards from the shelves and pushed them to one side, creating space to lean on and a clear shot at any cop who appeared from behind the metallic doors.

  Something solid bumped into Luke’s shin and crushed his big toe. He winced and retreated a couple of steps.

  A waist-high black robot, with a square head, spun toward him on its triangular rubber tracks. An orange laser activated from its right eye and scanned his body.

  Luke thrust the heel into the robot’s face. It flipped back like a domino and slapped against the concrete floor. “What the hell is this?” he asked.

  “Inventobot,” Emma replied. “It checks stock.”

  “Is it dangerous?”

  The robot’s tracks rotated to standing position, and its body rose to face him as smoothly as the second hand on a Rolex watch. A small circle in its mid-section twisted to the side and electricity crackled between two prongs inside a small compartment.

  Luke leaped to his right. The prongs shot out, dug into a computer casing on the shelf next to him, and sparks fizzed across the aisle.

  Perry moved behind the robot, wrapped his stocky arm around it, clenched his teeth, and twisted. Its head snapped loose, and lights on its face faded.

  “Thanks for the warning,” Luke said.

  “This thing couldn’t kill a child—” Perry said.

  Shots split the air and reverberated around the walls.

  Luke scanned the depot through his sights.

  Carl’s rifle bucked against his shoulder as he fired at the steps. Glowing projectiles streaked in his direction, smashing through supplies on the shelves in front and behind him, and scattering debris across the floor. He glanced over, held up his thumb, and continued to shoot.

  The elevator doors opened. Two cops blindly sprayed the immediate area with automatic fire and charged outside.

  Perry and Emma’s rifles cracked. Empty cases spat to their sides and rolled along the ground. Both cops took hits to their body, momentarily checking their progress until they zeroed in on the team.

  “Aim for their heads,” Luke shouted. He leaned on a coil of cable, put one of the cop’s face in his crosshairs, relaxed his breathing, and pulled the trigger. He switched to the second before the first had vanished to dust and drilled a round through his cheek.

  The cops’ rifles rattled against the stone floor, and their shimmering outlines disappeared.

  “Nice shooting,” Emma said.

  “Keep your composure,” Luke replied. “Make every one count.”

  The elevator doors closed and an upward arrow appeared on the display.

  Carl continued his firefight fifty meters to Luke’s left and carried out a quick magazine change. Whoever he engaged seemed reluctant to press into the depot.

  The time on Luke's watch flicked to 11:04.

  “I’ll leave you to it,” Luke said. “Remember, tactical reload if you get a short break and think your mags are low. The cops coming down might be the same ones, so change your position.”

  Perry and Emma moved along the shelving and cleared a new space. Luke sprinted toward the corridor, hoping his team could hold off the increasing numbers that were bound to descend now they realized the gravity of the situation.

  Helen said something through the radio.

  Luke pressed his transmit button. “Say again. It’s loud in here.”

  He entered the corridor and pressed the speaker to his ear.

  “Gate cleared. We’re heading for the generators. Two men down.”

  “Roger. Planting mine now. Out.”

  Casualties were inevitable, and Luke hadn’t felt the need to spell this it out during the planning phase. The grim faces around the cavern table told him everyone realized the risk involved.

  Perry and Emma’s rifles discharged.

  Luke’s boots squeaked along the corridor. The pack seemed to gain weight with every pounding step toward the power room, his thighs burned, and he sucked in deep breaths. He reached the solid red door at 11:05, backed to the opposite wall and pumped twenty rounds around the lock.

  A projectile whistled past his eyes and zipped toward the depot. Luke dived to the ground and aimed at the gloomy end of the corridor.

  Another shot ricocheted off the wall above his head, showering him with chips of plaster. He fired three rounds at the muzzle flash. A dark figure screamed and collapsed. This attacker wasn’t claytronic but had every intention of capturing or killing him, which snuffed out any slight feeling of guilt.

  Luke scrambled to his feet, rushed at the power room door and rammed his shoulder into it. It gave a few millimeters and wood splintered around the lock. He took a couple of steps back and lunged forward again; it crunched farther inward.

  A third shove did the trick. The door swung open and hammered against its stopper. He moved straight inside and peered around the room. Thick cables ran from the top of ten steel racks into the ceiling. Ten monitors on a workbench were all in screensaver mode. A light blue letter ‘T’ bounced around the dark blue screens.

  “I can’t hold ‘em much longer,” Carl said over the radio. “There’s too many.”

  “One minute.” Luke heaved off his pack, propped it against a central rack, and checked his pocket for the remote detonator. Sweat trickled along his back, and he wiped his forehead, leaving a glistening damp patch on the back of his cybernetic hand.

  The time had progressed to 11:07, and he hadn’t heard or felt an explosion from outside. “Helen, I’m ready to blow the main power. What’s your status?”

  “We’re just getting clear,” she said. “Detonating in thirty seconds.”

  Repeated cracks of X90 rifles and the whistle of Timetronic projectiles reported from the depot. Luke scanned the gloomy end of the corridor before heading back to join the firefight. Perry and Emma had mo
ved from the central aisle to a new position, and the streak of a tracer round confirmed at least one of them was still alive.

  Carl remained in the same place, surrounded by pieces of snapped plastic, twisted fragments of metal, and charred scraps of cardboard. He fired between the shelving and ducked behind a support.

  Luke edged into the main area. An upward arrow continually scrolled on the display above the elevator as rounds battered the wall around it. He spun and aimed in the opposite direction.

  A frozen translucent figure of a cop, with his arms spread, and a pistol by his feet, vanished into sparking haze. Perry and Emma waved from behind a jumble of engine parts on the furthest aisle.

  “Head outside and stay down,” Luke said through his radio. “I’m detonating in twenty seconds.”

  They moved back toward the fire escape and disappeared behind stacked boxes. He sprinted along the central aisle in a crouching run, keeping low to avoid the incoming fire, and slid to the ground next to Carl.

  Five cops had advanced from the stairs and fired between bubble wrapped claystation parts, firmly pinning Carl down.

  “Ready in five seconds?” Luke asked.

  “Better late than never. Let the buggers have it.”

  Luke pulled the remote control out of his pocket, rolled to his front, and depressed the button.

  Nothing happened.

  At the station-end of the aisle, two cops wheeled a restrainer cannon into view and knelt either side of it. A red laser speared from the front or the barrel and focused on Luke’s chest. He hit the button again.

  The building rumbled.

  A black cloud belched out of the corridor.

  An ear-splitting boom ripped through the depot. The overhead lights blinked off and a scorching wave of dust, smoke and debris rushed past Luke, invading his nostrils with an acrid stench. He squinted through the darkness toward the cops. Several faint blue glows faded to nothing, confirming the power cut in the atrium claystations.

  Thoughts of Cairo flew through his mind, and he realized he no longer viewed it as a nightmare. Events had superseded it, and the images only served as a reminder he now had a second chance at life. A chance he wasn’t prepared waste. He reached to his side and grabbed Carl’s arm. “You okay?”