Blaze of Chaos

by C. J. Strange

  “Honestly? Most of the tech crew. Playing cards with Remington, barely any of them seemed bothered by it.”

  “The wee’yin, Oliver?”

  “I think he’d gone off to grab something from storage,” I reply, straining my memory. The more I try to think, the harder my temples pound.

  “Remington can make his own call, you know.”

  “I know,” I don’t quite snap back at him, “but I should’ve investigated it myself, even with another lieutenant present. That’s protocol.”

  “Oh, that’s protocol, aye?” Duncan snorts, in a way that flares my temper and almost causes me to interrupt him. “I keep telling you, lass. We’re nae an army. We’re volunteers, and we volunteered for one fecked up job.”

  “Well, some of those ‘volunteers’ who just died? I cared about them,” is my sour response.

  A miniscule part of me doesn’t even feel sorry for the way my friend’s attempt at our usual dark humor blows up in his face. I’m not normally this… cold, but I’m on edge, and for good reason. He reaches out, his huge hand dwarfing my knee as he squeezes it.

  “I know, lassie. Me too. I dunnae mean any harm by it.”

  “I’m not sure I trust my own judgment anymore,” I blurt out weakly, though it’s not unexpected. I’ve never exactly been vague or closed off around Duncan; he’s one of those people I clicked with, trusted right off the bat. In fact, I don’t think there’s much I’ve ever hidden from him, at all.

  “But at the same time,” I press, “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to sit back and ignore my instincts after what just happened. If I’d gone in there with the lads in the first place—”

  “You’d probably be dead too,” interrupts Duncan, firmly. His tone is steely enough to halt my tongue in its tracks. “Command center was toast, weren’t a baw’hair left weren’t bolted down. If I can be honest with you, lassie? I for one am glad you of all people were nae in there. We, uh… ‘cause…” He scratches his head. “‘Cause we need leaders. On the outside. Aye.”

  My bitter laugh seems to catch him off-guard, and I shake my head. “After this, do you really trust me to lead you?”

  “Why not?”

  I stare at him for a moment. My brain may be frazzled and my nerves fried, but it’s late and I’m understandably exhausted. Perhaps I’m overthinking all of this.

  “Aye, so you may be younger than the others in command, by a fair few years,” says Duncan, which I’m grateful for because I’m struggling to speak again, “but the Cap’ saw something in you. There’s a reason I pulled you out of there, why I refused to give up until I found you. In the years I’ve known you, I’ve learned to trust your intuition, lass. And I’ve learned to trust you. You ain’t led us wrong yet.”

  “Where are we?”

  I know that Duncan can sense the tone shift in my voice. It’s sharper now, more decisive. His eyes trail my motion as I sit forward.

  “Muster point at Pigeon Street, past the Ring Road.”

  I nod. He’s positioned us exactly where I would have if I had been conscious enough to make the call—at B.L.A.Z.E.'s second designated assembly point. It’s close enough to the A665 that we can be on the motorway almost immediately if we suddenly need to leg it out of the city, but only a twelve-minute sprint from the Quarter itself. Close enough to claim any stragglers, but that unfortunately means being close to potential action we would rather avoid.

  “Are we au naturel?”

  Duncan shakes his head. The speed of his answer is probably due to the panic suddenly laced throughout my voice like an unpleasant tapestry. “Deployed your tripwires and all that malarkey, motion sensors are set up at a forty-foot perimeter. Nae a thing's getting in close without us knowing about it first, that’s for sure.”

  A single knot of concern in my stomach unravels. Sometimes, having Duncan around is like having one of those personal assistants you only see in illegally imported American and Japanese movies, who brings you what you need before you even know you need it. He may praise me for all of these bloody ‘leadership skills’ he's convinced I have but, without him not a half-inch behind me, I wouldn’t even be here today.

  “You’re my most dominant hand, I hope you know that.” I smirk at him, and he returns it, denting his stony demeanor for the first time during our conversation.

  “I actually think I’m more submissive whenever you’re about, lass.”

  The dryness with which he serves the ill-timed comment is enough to drag a snort of laughter out of the very back of my throat. I shoot him a glare, albeit a half-arsed one, and readjust the squeaky soles of my boots on the linoleum. I should probably make another attempt at standing up soon.

  “Well,” I say, adopting a more professional tonality, “I reckon we should sit tight. For as long as we can, at least. Avoid Branch 9, avoid the coppers, avoid any eyewitnesses—but sit tight. If any of our folk are wandering about out there, we’re going to be here to pick them up.”

  “Aye, the active team too,” adds Duncan. “They'll have heard about it, might even already be in the area.”

  I envy the ease with which he stands, and I remind myself that, not only do his muscles operate at five times the limit of an ordinary human’s, they also take about a third of the time to recover from exertion. Towering over me at his full six-foot-four, my friend extends a hand.

  “C’mon, lass. Work to be getting on with.”

  Our demeanor may seem cold to those who don't know us, cruel even, but it comes down to simple logistics. At this point, we’ve reached a fork in the road. One path takes us to grieving, acting in a way human beings are expected to act upon receiving news of the likely death of loved ones. The other, the path we have both decided to embark upon, is a journey of survival.

  And to survive, we have no time to grieve. We can do that later. At this point, we only have time to act.

  I both hate and love how his palm dwarfs mine, fingers wrapping around my entire hand as he tugs me effortlessly up off the sofa. My knees lock, and once he's confident I can stand on my own, he lets me go and pats my shoulder with noticeably more caution than normal.

  “All right,” I assert, with a glance toward the driver’s seat. “We need to get some sort of beacon up to let the rest of the brigade know there’s someone at the Muster Point.”

  Duncan frowns. “Can we do that without any of the tech lads?”

  “I can get the beacon out there for our people to see,” I reply. “But I can’t guarantee the wrong people won’t see it.”

  “Cannae guarantee?”

  I smile, apologetic. “That’s where Oliver comes in handy. Sorry, mate.”

  He shakes his head and waves me off. “What are you thinking, Lieutenant?”

  Weigh the risk against the reward, my father always taught me. I allow myself a couple of moments to chew one side of my tongue, but in my mind the decision has already been made.

  “Let’s get the beacon out,” I announce. “We’ll switch out watch duties at the vantage point every thirty. Give it ‘til morning, if we’re still in stealth, and then reassess. Sound fair?”

  “Aye. Want me to take first?”

  I start to nudge my way past his broader frame. “No. Help me get all this crap set up, and you can rest. If I suddenly need you to run sixteen marathons in under a minute, I want you at your best.”

  “I’ve got yours, lassie.”

  Even though I’m already part-way up the wall unit, doing my very best Spider-Man impression, I can’t help taking the time to throw him a warm smile over my shoulder. I’ve got yours, he’ll always grunt at me in his thick Glaswegian accent, often right before we barreled headfirst into absolute chaos together. While plenty of folk have claimed the same in the past, Duncan's loyalty, unlike that of others, has never wavered.

  “You’ve got mine, love. That, I know I can rely on.” I finish scaling the interior of my van and strain one arm for the item wedged behind a basket of spare blankets and jumpers. “The brig
ade, too. They know they can rely on us, on me. Or at least, they thought they could.”

  “Nae this again. None of this were your fault, Starling.”

  My boots hit the linoleum with a definite thud as I drop from the wall unit. “You keep on saying that,” I toss over my shoulder at him, an aluminum lockbox clutched in one hand. “And while I know it ain’t my fault, that doesn't mean I’m going to sit back and do sweet fuck all. I’ll sit here until next week if I have to, or at least until they chase us out of the bloody city. And if anyone’s out there, we’ll find them. I swear to whatever gods out there who let shit get this bad in the first place that we will find them.” I pause to inhale a calming breath. “Now, there are two extension leads and a little tool thingamajig in that drawer down there, can you bring it all up front?”

  I don't think it's possible for Duncan and I to offend one another anymore. Which is fantastic, especially in situations such as this. Or that awful incident six months ago with the truckload of rotting horsemeat…

  Regardless of my mental monologue, my friend is nodding assent and bending down to retrieve the requested items without wasting any further time. I probably shouldn’t either.

  Setting up the beacon is cake-piss. Bypassing the Sovereignty’s bastion of firewalls and other various security measures is a battle that takes place on another plane of difficulty entirely. Engineering, well, let’s say if it were a country, I would be comfortable enough with the language that I could ask where the toilet was and order lunch, but I wouldn’t be able to converse with the locals. My knowledge base is extremely limited. So if we have any luck left in the world, someone with a better grasp on electronics than I have will pick up on the signal and find us before Branch 9 or the coppers do.

  Because this isn’t only about locating those who are still alive. It’s about avenging those who aren’t.

  I reach the dashboard and pop the little lockbox up on top, sinking into the familiar leather driver’s seat. Once upon a time when it was shiny and new, I imagine this camper van was proper nice, top of the range—but it’s been well-worn and well-loved for as long as I can remember it being my home, well over half a decade now. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  The combination lock opens swiftly beneath my fingers, and I start plucking out wires and pieces of equipment. Duncan’s rucksack and signature leather motorcycle jacket are on the passenger seat, and I can both hear and feel his footsteps as he walks the length of the van toward me. He’ll need space to sit. I reach my hand out to quickly move his gear for him, but as I yank the bag and jacket into the space between our chairs, what sounds like several sets of keys fall down with them.

  “Oh my god, butterfingers,” I gasp. “I’m so sorry.” I squirm to grab them from between the seats with my smaller hands. “Hang on…”

  “Wait—”

  Despite his interjection, his attempt to avoid me identifying the stamped pieces of steel alloy between my fingers, there's not a chance in hell that I could ever not recognize them. I wear a matching tag religiously around my own wrist, for scenarios not dissimilar to this exact one.

  “Duncan, these…” My words are wobbly with denial. There are six rounded tags, each punched crudely with its own identity code, between the fingers of my right hand. I spy at least three more in the shadowy footwell. “These are…”

  When I finally glance up at him, there are tears in his eyes. I’ve only ever seen him cry once before, just once. He hastily rips his gaze away from my own. It takes me a few seconds to understand it’s not because he doesn’t want to look at me, but because he isn’t able to.

  “Found ‘em,” he grates out, his voice thick and hoarse with raw emotion. “Thirteen of ‘em.”

  “Thirteen?”

  Duncan’s jerk of a nod is the affirmation I don’t want. The world falls away around us, like one of Oliver’s coded computer programs crashing and shutting down. Oh my god, what if Oliver’s number is on one of those tags? My gut hollows out. Without my consent, my breath completely stops. If it could, my heart would join it.

  Thirteen…

  It’s Duncan’s hand on my shoulder that tugs me out of my fog and back into the interior of the van. Or maybe it was my hand on Duncan’s knee that brought him back. Either way, when our eyes finally meet, the courage and pain alike that I see in his is what gives me the strength I need to carry on. To hold my head up high. To continue to dare to dream.

  We have to, both of us. For each other.

  “Read them.”

  “Eh?”

  “Read them,” I demand again, this time with more force. It’s no longer a request: it’s an order. “Tell me the names. I want to know their names.”

  “Penny, lass...”

  “This is not the end, Duncan,” I interrupt in a low undertone—perhaps to my friend, or perhaps to myself. It doesn’t matter, we both need to hear it. “As long as someone’s still standing, it’s never going to be over. And that’s a bloody promise.”

  2 Oliver’s Worst Possible Option

  There’s this right cool movie from back in the early 1990s, where this woman called Sarah Connor and her prodigy son are forced to entrust their safety and survival to what is simultaneously both their best and worst possible option. Their savior comes in the unlikely form of a die-hard cyborg whose sole programmed purpose is locating living organisms and swiftly executing them.

  The movie is aptly named Terminator 2: Judgment Day and is, evidently, a sequel. That being said, I’ve never seen the original in its entirety and I don’t have any contacts on the FreeNet who can locate a copy for me. As far as storylines and special effects from that era of Hollywood go, it’s honestly a remarkable piece of work! A-plus in my book, and a lifelong favorite.

  But before I ‘go off on one’ (which is what Penny Starling likes to call it when her favorite dork of a friend, me, goes into the unnecessarily nitty-gritty of any particular topic), there is a specific reason I brought the film up as the perfect example of a bizarrely perfect movie moment.

  I didn’t even think about it until quite some time afterwards. But it works, when I compare it to how I felt as I squished myself deeper into the tiny storage locker I’d taken refuge in. A torrent of flames had come shooting into the cargo hold and I knew I had to get out before the blaze reached any of our munitions, but all I could see was fire and all I could feel was the searing heat sapping my strength. My brain was frozen in fear.

  I’ve never been active out in the field. My work happens from the sanctity of the Switchboard, which is where I like to be. Safe and secure, away from the action and danger of the raid itself.

  Sucks for me, because the Switchboard was none of those things tonight. As as I hid in my locker, convinced I was going to die very slowly or very quickly before the hour was out, I wish I could say I was strong enough mentally that I didn't just huddle there and sob.

  And then, there he was: walking through the wall of smoke and flames with tatters of whatever clothes he’d been clad in hanging alight with embers from soot-covered muscles. If I hadn’t been fearing for my life, I may have questioned my sexuality upon seeing it—although, living and working with a girl like Penny makes it difficult for a guy to even consider the possibility he might be gay. But the image of him, a silhouette of hope against the chaos, is forever emblazoned in my mind regardless.

  He must’ve known I was there, because he came stalking for me, kicking aside the pallet truck of flaming wooden crates that had been blocking my escape. Without a word of a lie, at that very moment, the smooth-talking, ginger git actually turned around to me and quoted: “Come with me if you wanna live, muppet.”

  I’m not sharing my illegal download collection with him again, that’s for bloody sure.

  An hour later, and it’s still just the two of us. Myself, and Alfie. I always make sure to call him ‘Alfie’. I've learned by watching others learn the hard way that even if you know his full name, it is never to be used under any circumstances, regardless
of the hilarity level. It’s never not going to be a mood killer.

  We’ve taken refuge over in Miles Platting, an enormous Cooperative Housing estate for Anomalies a thirty-minute eastward run from the Switchboard. I’m sure that to most ordinary people, it would only be a ten- or fifteen-minute run, but sprinting has never exactly been my strong suit. Dirty canal water isn’t the most pleasant washing solution, but Alfie had been coated in a dense mantle of soot, and my face and hair were logged with ash. While dubious activity is often overlooked in these Anomaly ghettos Britain’s been building for the past few years, we don't want to be wandering about looking suspiciously smoky tonight of all nights.

  While Alfie’s abilities may have immunized his skin to the fire and the heat, there was nothing left of his clothing. The same baggy jeans that had protected my legs as he dragged me out of the storage room were large enough to fit him (despite him being several sizes bigger than me), and now hang from his pale hips. My equally-oversized hoodie is wrapped around my legs in their place as we sit together on a bench opposite the multi-use games area.

  If the coppers show up, I’ll flee in my boxers. I’ll do it with an audience, I don’t care. I have absolutely zero sense of shame when it comes to staying out of the bloody Vault.

  Victoria Mills Park is one of two muster points for B.L.A.Z.E. in the event of an emergency. Its proximity to the larger A-roads that lead out of Manchester and its location in the Coops make it a perfect assembly area, plus it’s commonplace to see kids who look like us loitering in this park. And Alfie had been a little too vocal in his assertion that if anyone does bother us, he can ‘take care’ of it.

  Isn’t there a scene in Terminator 2 where John Connor has to explain to the cyborg the value of human life and the reasons why we don’t just kill on sight?

  One of these days, I’ll learn to actually deal with my emotions as they arise. But until then, it’s salt and movie references for me.