by Jule Owen
“The best option we have now is to go back to our vehicles, lock the doors and hope that they, whoever ‘they’ are, don’t get in.”
“They’ll shoot us through the glass,” a third man says. He’s middle-aged and balding and sweating heavily through his shirt, in spite of the cold air.
“It depends on your car.”
A gunshot makes them all jump.
“Oh God!” says the first man in the suit.
Falkous looks at Mathew, “Come on, let’s go.”
“I’m coming with you,” the man in the suit says.
Falkous stops and turns to the man. “I’m a security guard. I’m not police or army. And I’m responsible for this boy. You’re a grown man.”
“You have a gun and I bet your car is armoured,” the student says. “Isn’t it?”
“We could probably all fit in your car,” the balding man says.
“No you won’t,” Falkous says, responding irritably to the aggression of the men. Then she relents, “Look, I’ll try and see you all back to your cars, but you are on your own from there.”
“Why can’t we come in your car?”
Falkous looks at the man hard, “Do you want to stand about chatting right now?” There’s more gunfire. “It’s getting closer,” she says. They hear shouting. Falkous grabs Mathew by the lapel of the jacket she made him wear and urges him forward. They move quickly. “Come on, come on,” she whispers sharply to the others. “And keep down.”
They stop to take breath by a Techno Food delivery truck.
Falkous peers through the line of cars ahead. “I can see our car,” she whispers to Mathew. “Stay close to me.” She is thinking Thank God for the curfew! Otherwise the whole road would be crawling with people. Those travelling today must have a good reason. Whoever is blocking the road knows that and perhaps it’s good news. Perhaps they are looking for someone in particular.
Falkous starts to move again and then ducks down. “Shit,” she says.
“What’s wrong?” asks the suit.
“There are people over there,” she says, indicating with her thumb.
“They could be like us, people in the jam getting out for a stroll.”
“I don’t think they are,” she says.
Then they hear gunshots, one gun firing again and again. Someone shouts, “Come out! On the floor. Spread your arms.”
Falkous catches the man’s eyes. She shakes her head and peers around the truck again and sees their car. So close. She is thinking of making a run for it when the voices get closer.
Someone says, “Look, Scott, there’s a food truck here.”
“Jackpot!” another voice says.
The sounds of boots.
“Hey, Scott, I’ve found something else too.” The speaker is a tall boy-man, seventeen, maybe eighteen years old, lanky, slumped and hunched at the shoulders. “Drop your gun,” he says to Falkous.
She drops her automatic weapon.
5 Panic Room
“Kick it to me,” the boy says.
Falkous kicks the weapon away from her.
Scott, his companion, comes from around the truck, much shorter, fair-haired, though not much older, with a soft baby beard that covers his cheeks. He raises his gun as soon as he sees them, pointing it at each of them in turn, bouncing nervously on his feet. He’s clearly on something.
“Have you checked them for weapons, Nigel?”
“Only this one,” he says, indicating Falkous.
The blond boy goes round the group, searching them. He’s carrying a bag; he swings it off his back and opens it up. It contains boxes, containers for Lenzes.
He opens one and shoves it at the man in the suit. “Drop your Lenz in here,” he says. He hands out boxes to the rest of them. The tall boy trains his gun on them all, while Scott, his friend, works.
“Bingo!” says the tall boy, excitedly. “Must be thousands in cash here, once we’ve off-loaded this stuff.”
Mathew takes out his Lenz and puts them carefully in the Lenz tray. It is awkward to do without a mirror. The balding man in the suit drops one of his.
“Clumsy bastard,” Scott says. “Pick it up.” The man bends down to find the Lenz on the road. He finds it and puts it in the tray, closes the box and hands it to the boy. The boy strikes him across the head, making the man, who is still crouched on the floor, fall. “Leach,” he spits, his voice full of hatred. “Now your e-Pinz,” the boy says. He looks around the group. “All of you!” He waits as his prisoners take out their e-Pinz, holding out his palm to receive them. Then he carefully empties his hoard into a pocket in his bag, zips the bag and hefts it onto his shoulder.
“What should we do with them?” Scott says.
“We’ll ask Ran. Watch ’em a sec, will you?” The tall man shoots at the back of the food truck to break the lock and yanks open the door. “Would you look at this?!”
Falkous takes them out with two neat dull-thud silenced shots to the head, using her hand gun. They fall to the ground where they are standing. No one had body-checked her. She smiles slightly as she pulls their weapons from under their bodies.
“Can you use a gun?” she asks the man in the suit.
He nods. She passes him one of the boy’s weapons.
“You?” she asks the student.
“No,” he says.
“Anyone else?” She looks around the group at blank faces. She thrusts the gun at the student. “You’d better learn quickly,” she says, bending and retrieving her own automatic. As she stands, she spots someone, another boy, another one of the gang. He sees her, turns and runs. She shoots at him, but misses.
“Frack!” she says.
Falkous drags a dazed Mathew along by the arm. “Come on, come on,” she growls. They run at full pace, not even bothering to duck. Then she pulls him down with her.
There’s a gaggle of people around their car. They crawl under the belly of the vehicle they’ve landed by.
They hear a nasal voice saying, “This is a pretty nifty one. Military vehicle, I reckon. Almost certainly comes with guards.”
“Where are they? There’s no one in here,” says a deeper voice with a strong northern accent.
Someone pulls repeatedly at a car door handle. “Locked,” the nasal voice says.
“Of course it’s locked.”
“What if it’s booby-trapped?” This is a third voice, less confident.
“Booby-trapped?” the nasal voice says mockingly.
Someone runs up to the group. An out-of-breath voice gasps, “Nigel and Scott have been shot!”
“What the…?” begins the deep northern voice.
Falkous can only see boots, but she can tell that these are boys or teenagers, not men, from their voices.
“Who shot him?” the nasal voice asks.
“There’s a group back there. They were armed.”
“How many?”
“I dunno, I ran.”
“Your comrade is down and you run?” the deep northern voice says, with disgust.
“It was probably one of the guards from this,” the nasal voice says, kicking at a tyre.
“Where’re Nigel and Scott?” the deep voice asks.
“Down there, by the food truck.” The out-of-breath voice is getting steadier, catching its breath again. It shares the same accent as the northerner, but the timbre is not as deep.
“Is it a Techno Food truck?” asks the deep voice.
“Yeah, why?”
“It will be full of food.”
“For frack’s sake, man, Nigel and Scott are dead!” snaps the nasal voice.
“We don’t know they’re dead. He didn’t say so.”
“Are they dead?” the nasal voice asks.
“I don’t know,” says the out-of-breath northerner.
“There you are, you see,” says the northerner.
“Where’s the truck? Show us,” says the nasal voice.
The boots start to move away. Falkous starts to move. Then there�
��s a gunshot and the boots halt.
“What the frack, man?!”
“Was that one of ours?”
“It came from the Techno truck.”
“I saw someone. Over there.”
“C’mon.”
The boots move off again and Falkous edges forward, indicating that Mathew does the same. She can see the wheels of their car. They are almost there.
Then they hear raised voices, “I didn’t kill him. I don’t even know how to use this!” There is another shot. Silence. Then more raised voices.
“For God’s sake. It was a woman. I don’t know who she is!”
“Is she armed?”
“Does she have a gun?”
“Yes!”
“Where is she? Show me!”
Falkous and Mathew watch the boots return.
The nasal voice says, “Come out.”
Falkous turns to Mathew, puts her finger to her lips and indicates with her hand, a flat palm, and then points to the ground. Be quiet. Stay here. She leaves her handgun next to him and looks him in the eye, meaningfully. Use this.
She slides out her automatic weapon, which someone grabs, and then crawls out from under the car. She is on her hands and knees, starting to get to her feet when someone kicks her… then kicks her again and again. She falls to the floor. Her eyes are open. She smiles slightly at Mathew.
“Get up!” the nasal voice screams. He is hysterical.
Someone else bends down and grabs at her. “Get up, he said!” It is the deep voice.
She is forced to her feet. Mathew can only see her boots now. She staggers.
“Did you shoot our friend?” the deep voice asks.
“Of course she shot him!” the nasal voice almost screams. “Let’s finish her. I’ll do it myself.”
“Is that your car?” the northern voice asks. “That car over there, the black one. Is that your car?!”
Falkous is silent. Then suddenly there is a scuffle, grunts, shouts. Someone lands heavily on the floor. Mathew scoots back into the shadows. It isn’t Falkous. It is one of her assailants, a boy not much older than Mathew. He lies winded for a second and then gets unsteadily back up. Then there is another gunshot, followed quickly by more. Bodies fall to the floor. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
After a long moment, Falkous’ face appears. “Come out,” she says.
Mathew crawls towards her and she helps him up. She is clutching her side. “Flesh wound,” she says, but her face is drawn.
There are four bodies on the floor, all young men and boys. The first man in a suit is standing several yards away. At his feet is the body of the student. He steps over him, coming forward. Falkous looks at him, “Frack off,” she says, waving her gun at him. “Fracking traitor.”
“They were going to shoot me,” he says. “Look what they did to him.”
“C’mon Mat.” They head for the car.
The two men and the woman follow.
“You’ve got to let us in,” the balding man says, aggressively moving forward. “It would be murder not to.”
The car doors open for Falkous. She holds the door open for Mathew and slams it on him.
She points to the wound in her ribs, “This is murder,” she says. “Betraying that boy is murder. That is murder too,” she points to the dead boys on the ground. “So we’re all murderers.”
The man steps forward and tries to get in the car. She shoots at his leg. He screams and rolls onto the ground. Then she gets in the car, throwing the gun on Vid’s empty seat.
“Car,” she says. “Safety over-ride off.”
“Please submit emergency code for that command.”
“Wet weekend,” Falkous says.
“Thank you. What are your instructions?”
“I need you to turn and ram the vehicle directly to our left out of the way so we can access that hard shoulder and drive the wrong way along it.”
“Acknowledged.” The car starts to drive forward.
“You’re wounded,” Mathew says. “Were you shot?”
“No. Stabbed.”
“I was wearing your jacket. You’d be fine if you hadn’t given it to me.”
“Probably. Difficult to make all good decisions in these situations. Might have gone differently.”
“Is it bad?”
“Feels it. Not sure. Medibots are going to town. Hold on.”
The car rams the truck. It doesn’t budge. “Car, can you instruct the truck to take its handbrake off and cooperate in any way it can? Explain what we’re trying to do.”
“Acknowledged.”
There is a moment’s pause and then the car rams again. They are both thrown forwards and then backwards in their seats.
“Put your seat belt on,” Falkous says. She pulls hers across and clips it in as the car accelerates. This time the truck moves forward a few feet.
“Who were those people you shot?”
“According to central security, a local gang, probably being run by a more organised criminal group.”
“Why hasn’t anyone come to help us?”
“Now, that I don’t know. Perhaps the police and army have lost control here. It’s happened elsewhere. Hold on.”
The car rams the truck again. There is a noticeable gap now. Alarms are going off on the dashboard.
Mathew looks out through his window. The two men and the woman are standing watching. “Shouldn’t we take them with us?”
“If we still have a working car at the end of this, we will take them. If we don’t, you crawl into the panic room and lock yourself in for the night. Okay?”
“Okay,” Mathew says. “There are some other people with guns coming,” Mathew says.
“Shit,” Falkous says, turning her head.
There are four of them, young men, but older than the others. They examine the dead boys. The man in the suit points at the car. They run over.
The car rams the truck again. One of the young men opens fire at the car. Mathew dives down as bullets splatter like rain at the window.
“I guess Vid was right about that too. Bloody car is bullet-proof.”
The car pushes the truck forward several yards with a great lurch.
The men with the guns have stopped firing. They are standing watching.
The car tries to reverse, but its wheels spin. Its bumper is caught firm on a broken panel on the side of the truck. The truck is pushed far onto the hard shoulder and topples down the bank, dragging the car after it.
“Get into the panic room,” Falkous says. “Do it.”
Shaking, Mathew undoes his belt; his fingers feel thick. The belt comes off; he pulls his seat forward and opens the cupboard, the momentum of the car lurching slowly after the truck down the bank making it easy to pull out the fridge. Mathew slides into the box. He has to brace with his feet and one hand, gripping the plates that held the fridge to stop himself from falling out. He reaches and grabs his rucksack and pulls at the door.
“Hit the button!” Falkous yells.
Mathew searches around and then sees the red button. He hits it with the side of his fist. The door starts to close. It locks. An emergency light comes on. He is thrown about in the box as the car crashes down the bank after the truck. For a few dizzying moments, there is silence.
“Falkous?” he says. “Ali?”
There is silence.
Then there is a faraway muffled noise outside. Some voices, but too indistinct for him to hear anything. There’s a dull thud, possibly gunfire, but the box muffles sound. More noises. Someone is outside his box, scratching and banging around. More muffled voices. Is that laughter? He holds his breath until it bubbles and burns within him. There’s a final muffled bang and then silence.
6 The Boy
Falkous said to wait, but it’s been hours now. Hours in this tiny box the size of a coffin, smaller than a coffin. He can’t fully stretch out his legs. There’s a dim blue light, which he is grateful for because he can at least see the edges of his confines. He h
as enough space to turn over, but not to sit, and the box is angled awkwardly so that he is constantly rolling down to the door. It is not a comfortable place to be. The blue rucksack is wedged in by his feet. He has no water and his bladder is ready to burst. They, whoever ‘they’ are, have taken his Lenz and his e-Pin. He has no means of contacting Falkous or anyone else besides.
He listens.
Silence. But he doesn’t know if that is because the box is soundproof, or if it means it is safe to come out. The worry that it is not, keeps him there.
Then it occurs to him that he is not sure how to unlock the door, and the sudden overwhelming fear of being trapped drives him out. In a panel by his head there is a flap and a switch and a button. He flips the switch and hits the button and the door swings open, spilling him onto the floor of the car and into the back of the car seat. The car is almost sitting on its nose, the front of it ploughed into the back of the truck they had been ramming. The digital table is broken. He tries to wake it, but there is no response.
The glass partition separating the guards’ seats from the back is shattered. He can’t see Falkous. He tries to open the back doors but both are locked tight.
With his feet, he clears the remaining broken glass from the partition and slides through into the front of the car, pushing his rucksack before him. The on-board computer is gone, ripped out, wires dangling. The door beside him is open, buckled and hanging on one hinge. Tumbling out, he sees Falkous fifteen feet away, lying in the water at the bottom of the slope.
He scrambles down and then stops. She isn’t moving and her face is in the water.
“Falkous?” he says, somehow already knowing there will be no response. He doesn’t want to go down, but he finds his feet leading him there. Five feet from Falkous’ body, he squats, hugging the rucksack to him. “Falkous,” he says again.
The wind blows wavelets over her and her hand moves slightly. His heart leaps in hope, thinking for a second that she’s actually moving, that she’s alive, but it is just the water. After a while, he stands and edges further down. He puts the rucksack on the dry ground above her body, leans down and shakes her gently. No response. He needs to turn her over. The idea fills him with dread but he grips one of her shoulders with both hands and levers her awkwardly onto her side and she falls back with a splash.