Then it happens. Just like before. Gravity ceases to exist. Half of the behemoth and what looks like miles of other buildings come loose and float toward the sky, turning to dust as they move. Then it’s over.
Down the street, I see a hole like the Grand Canyon, but I can’t see the other side. It’s beyond the horizon. Then I hear the screams; folks panicking, shrieking in fear. We kick into gear and head for the mobile unit. Rehna’s in and buckled up in seconds, but two nearby noises catch my attention. Both are whiny—one from above, one from below. I turn to the second and see a little girl, the daughter of some simp probably, but still just a kid.
“Priest, move it! The whole thing’s comin down!” Rehna sounds panicked. That’s not good.
I look up and see what remains of the behemoth begin to crumble. I run for the girl, arms stretched out. The mobile unit’s engines are loud behind me. Rehna’s on the ball.
The girl must sense my urgency because she’s running for me now. I scoop her up like a football and look over my shoulder. Rehna’s coming on fast. Thank God she left the hatch open. This is going to be close.
I toss the girl back, and she lands hard in my seat. Probably hurt like hell, but at least she’ll live. Can’t say the same for me though. Let’s hope Rehna’s reading my mind and doesn’t want to kill me.
The mobile unit is on my heels when I jump into the air. I feel the closed hatch sliding beneath me, then the hard metal of the rear casing. I dig my mechanical fingers into the metallic roof and feel a tug as Rehna hits the accelerator, making a beeline for the edge of the city.
Like a falling redwood, the solid building begins to topple above my head, its shadow looming and blocking out the sun. My face begins to sting as dust moving past at one hundred fifty miles-per-hour scours my skin. Rehna must be able to see what I’m seeing. We have ten thousand feet of twisting metal and cement to outrun. As we hit the two hundred mile-an-hour mark, I think about how much of a bitch paper work for today is going to be back at up-town. Then I remember there might not be an up-town left.
We hit four hundred miles an hour, and I’m not thinking anything. My face is burning like its being held against an open flame, and the skin stitched to my synth-arm feels like it’s going to tear off. The wind is so loud in my ears I don’t hear the explosion as the building hits the ground behind us, leveling miles of city blocks and destroying several other buildings.
The mobile unit slows to a stop somewhere outside of the city. I don’t know where, wasn’t really paying attention. My forward momentum carries me over the roof and I slide across the hatch, landing on the pavement.
I look up and see Rehna leaning down above me. “You still alive, Priest?”
“Been worse. Help me up.”
I stand to my feet and see my reflection in the mobile unit’s slick paint job. “Damn.”
“What is it?” Rehna asks me.
I look at my Tac-suit, torn and shredded on my body, hanging like a limp corpse. “Now they owe me two Tac-suits.”
Rehna smiles.
With most of up-town reduced to atoms there isn’t anyone left to report to. Hell, I might be the highest ranking cop in town. All city-bound lines of communication are inoperable, so I turn to the next best source of information. The dashboard sat-link blinks on and is instantly filled with the image of a screaming woman. She appears to be reporting on the wave of destruction that just ravaged my city, but she’s incoherent. Useless.
“Channels one through fifty, news filter priority one.” The sat-link responds to my voice like an obedient dog, filling the screen with twenty three thumbnail feeds. I scan the images and listen to the mix of voices.
“English only.” One by one, images disappear. Only five remain when it’s done. Three screens show women reporters crying their guts out. Another displays a man wailing like a stuck pig—embarrassing. The fifth shows an aerial shot of the carnage, something had carved a clean, perfectly round hole in the center of the city, miles wide and countless fathoms deep. Millions of lives have been lost.
Rehna gasps. “My God.”
Women...
The kid is sitting in Rehna’s lap, staring intently at the screen, eyes wide. Kid’s taking it all in stride. Probably not old enough to be an emotional wreck yet.
“Track five, audio only. Enlarge.” The image of the destruction fills the screen.
The voice of a reporter speaks calmly over the feed. “Once again, as it did a year ago, a sinister force from orbit has struck the Earth. The source of the devastation is still unknown and with The Authority headquarters destroyed, chances are, we will never know where and when this evil force might strike again. Scientists studying the clean-cut hole of last year’s attack could not identify what kind of weapon was used, only that it is far more advanced than anything in the World District’s arsenal. Could technology finally be turning on—”
Before I have time to react, the kid reaches out and messes with the sat-link controls. We lose the feed.
“What the hell, kid? Don’t touch this shit,” I say, while attempting to readjust the controls.
“Move your damn hand,” the kid barks at me.
I stop and give her the coldest stare I can muster—sends most mutts running scared. But the kid just gives it back to me.
“What’s your name, kid?”
“Well, it ain’t kid.”
I wait.
“Gawyn.”
“Well, Gawyn. I ain’t letting no simp mess with my mobile unit.”
“Good. Cause I ain’t no simp, old man.”
Old man? Kid’s looking to get a close up look at my knuckles talking like that. I clench my left fist. Then I feel a squeeze on my shoulder. Rehna’s glaring at me. “Let her play with the freakin sat-link, Priest.”
I smile. “There you go talking dirty to me again.”
Gawyn goes to work. Her fingers are a blur on the screen, working the controls masterfully, faster than I could even with the synth-arm. My eyes widen with every half second, cause that’s all it takes for her to access The Authority’s satellite mainframe. She’s no simp. She’s a damn cyber-genius.
“What are you doin, kid?”
“The anti-matter pulse came from orbit.”
“Anti-matter pulse?” Rehna’s as confused as I am.
“That’s just what I call it. I detected its energy field twenty minutes before the pulse. That’s how I got out of the target area in time, but just barely.”
“You can detect it?” I ask, knowing it’s a dumb question.
“Duh. Any kid with an old 40-Gig system and a sat-link could detect it. But you have to look for it. Auto detection won’t pick it up as more than a temporary heat-spike.”
“And you were looking for it?”
“Since last year.” The kid’s fingers continue across the controls. She breaches several protected servers and accesses classified surveillance systems. “It’s the most kick-ass weapon since the beginning of time.”
The kid looks me in the eyes. “You’re must be lucky or something. Missed you twice now.”
Rehna and I look at each other. “You know who I am?”
“Who doesn’t. Your wrinkly face was pasted to every sat-link transmission for a month... Of course, not everyone has been tracking you for the last year. You know, for all your research, you didn’t find much.”
I look the kid in the eyes and try not to blink. “You’ve been spying on me for a year?”
“It’s not like it’s hard, you know.” The kid smiles. I have one of the most secure systems in the city. She probably sees it as a playground. Damn kids today. “You’ve been trying to find out what happened that day...what took your arm, and your Tac-suit. You’re obsessed with Tac-suits.”
I’m losing patience. “Get to the point.”
“When I detected the heat spike, I came to find you. The anti-matter pulse cut the engines off my hyper-scooter. Almost got me too, and I crashed just outside the target area. That’s when I found you. I
knew that you, more than anyone else, would take action once I told you what I know.”
I raise an eyebrow. It’s all I’m willing to give.
Gawyn taps one last button on the sat-link. A diagram of Earth orbit and every piece of space junk currently above the city blinks onto the screen. One of the objects is highlighted with a red circle.
“And this is?”
“How’d you ever become a cop?”
Kid’s a wise ass. I like her.
Gawyn rolls her neck and speaks quickly. “I figured that if the antimatter pulse fired on this city again that it was probably in a geosynchronous orbit above us.”
“Okay...”
“This cuts out bazillions of other possible suspect satellites.”
Rehna leans forward. “Meaning we’re left with the millions of orbiting objects currently over the city.
“Right, but not everything up there is geosynchronous and the fact that nothing in orbit was destroyed means that what we’re looking for is on the bottom layer of a half mile of junk.”
Damn kid is smart. Not even the tech-boys could have figured this out. Good thing too, now that they’re all dead.
“Now we’re left with only a few thousand targets.”
“And you’ve narrowed it down to one?” Rehna asks.
Gawyn nods.
“How?”
“It’s hot,” I say, finally catching up with the kid.
“Right, but not for long. It’s already cooling off.”
I activate the hatch and it seals down over us. “What are you doing?” Rehna asks.
“Buckle up,” I tell them.
Gawyn looks nervous. “I don’t have a seatbelt!”
I smile. “Better double up then.”
Rehna and Gawyn wrap a belt around the two of them, and I gun the throttle to the max, pulling more G’s than a Disney Universe shuttle pod. I aim for the sky, swerving in and out of airborne traffic—most of it fleeing the city. Three minutes later, we clear ten thousand feet and leave most of the traffic behind.
“Priest, what are you planning to do?” Rehna asks. I can tell she’s afraid of the answer. I try to go easy on her.
“Even been in space?” I ask.
Rehna and Gawyn stare at me blankly. The kid explodes, “Bring me back! Bring me back down!”
“I can’t,” I say as calmly as possible.
“Why not?” Gawyn shouts.
“Cause, kid, I might need you.”
Gawyn stares at me. I can feel her trying to gauge my seriousness. Her eyes narrow. “You’re right, old man. You do need me.”
“I hate to break it to you, Priest, but mobile units aren’t rated for space travel.” Rehna is trying to remain calm. I’m pretty sure that if the kid weren’t on her lap, she might fight me for the controls.
“Actually, that’s not entirely true. Up-town might not have let me change the color, but they did let me make a few modifications.” I can’t help but smile.
“Priest...What modifications?”
I respond by opening a panel next to my right knee. After flipping a switch, the mobile unit beings to shake as loud whirs and clacks emanate from the back. Sounds like we’re falling to pieces, but I know better. Rehna screams as we lose power and our ascent slows.
Just as our forward momentum ceases and gravity reclaims its pull on our mobile unit at twenty-five thousand feet, the secondary propulsion unit kicks in, slowly at first, but building in power with each passing nanosecond. Suddenly with a burst of speed, we’re flattened against our seats, skin stretching back as we enter Earth’s crowded orbit.
For the first time since I’ve joined the force, I’m wearing my seatbelt. Hard to drive in zero grav when you keep floating off the seat. The kid is having too much fun, working the sat-link upside down, drifting in the cabin. Rehna just looks mortified...or is it pissed? Kind of hard to tell with Gawyn spinning around between us.
“Which way, kid?”
“Gawyn. My name is Gawyn, old man.”
“Fine...Gawyn. Which way?”
“Well, Priest, straight-a-freakin-head.”
Through the windshield is a mass of floating objects. Some are satellites, serving some purpose to someone. Some are space-decks, orbiting apartment units for people afraid of gravity. The rest is crap—trash tossed into space by folks in the late twenty-first century when they ran out of room for their trash. They figured it would all just float aimlessly through space for all eternity. Dumb bastards didn’t count on picking it all back up a year later when they caught up with their own shit. The thought that this is only a year’s worth of trash makes me sick.
“Heat signature is faint, but we’re within fifty meters,” Gawyn says.
All eyes scan the debris field. Some of the trash separates and we enter a clearing, twenty meters wide, twenty tall. Strange.
I cut the gas and we drift forward, toward the center of the clearing, where a satellite floats alone. It’s big, the size of an air-bus. At its base, pointed toward the Earth is what appears to be a satellite dish attached to three metallic coils extending out like a solidified DNA sequence.
Fwang! A series of laser blasts ricochet off the mobile unit’s hull. The kid jumps back, away from the windshield, but there’s nothing to get cranky about. “Ratchet down, Gawyn. Lasers barely left a scratch.”
Rehna looks at me, more relaxed now that we’re seeing action. “Maybe they’ll let you change the paint color now?”
The smile on my face must tell all, because Rehna looks away quickly. Never in my life has a woman remembered something I’ve said, unless it was an insult. Of course, now might not be the best time to think about it.
Fwang! Fwang! Lasers barrage the outside of the mobile unit doing nothing more than providing a cheesy lightshow. “Must be low yield,” I say.
“Probably to deflect space junk,” Rehna adds.
I steer us toward the satellite and pull up close next to what looks like a maintenance hatch. Then it occurs to me, this might not just be a satellite...maybe it’s a space station. Someone might be alive inside this thing.
As we come within inches of the orbiting beast’s hull, the laser fire dies off. Gives me a chance to inspect the outer surface for clues as to who owes me money. “Shit,” I say, now knowing I’ll never get reimbursed for my Tac-suits.
“What is it?” Rehna asks.
“Mooners,” Gawyn spits out. “Dirty Mooners.”
Fifteen hundred years ago a moon colony was established and its population grew. Low grav made them multiply like rabbits on Dretch. But their advance in everything techie grew just as fast and they quickly adapted to supporting a massive population. It was one of the most modern facilities ever built and larger than any Earth city at the time. Damn toilets probably wiped their asses for them.
Millions were thriving when Albin was born. The bastard rose to power two hundred years after the colony was formed. He was some kind of religious zealot and fancied himself as God’s divine prophet. And the Mooners, ungrateful little whelps, whining about being controlled by us Earthers, staged a brutal and savage revolt. Under Albin’s direction, a series of hit-and-run attacks on Earth cities were carried out. The cowards couldn’t stand toe to toe with us, so they took aim at normal people, the simps, the young, the yuppies, people who never see the inside of a mobile unit. Killed thousands. They forced Earth to retaliate. Rather than wipe the Mooners clean from the moon with nukes, like I would have done, the government at the time opted to carry out a strategic strike aimed at Albin himself.
A single Earth agent managed to infiltrate Albin’s organization and rose to power from within, as a trusted General. Too bad for Albin; he lost his head while taking a crap. A single, high-caliber bullet splattered his brains against the bathroom wall. Got what he deserved too. But he died a martyr. The Mooners continued to piss and moan and soon gained their independence. Not much has been heard from them since. The colony hasn’t grown in size. No new construction has been reported...b
ut from the insignia on the outside of this satellite, I now know that they’ve kept busy over the years.
I attach the docking seal to the side of the satellite—another modification. The sat-link gives the OK and I unbuckle myself and float through the tight opening into the mobile unit’s backside. With my new C130 tight in my hand I head for the hatch.
“Wait for me.” Gawyn says.
I don’t even look back. “Sit your ass back down. No one moves until I say so.” I can hear her fold her arms. Must not be used to being told what to do. What I’ve seen her do with a computer this far leads me to believe she hasn’t had much parental supervision. Not that parents are any good for anything other than feeding you.
I open the docking hatch, and a burst of stale air surges into the mobile unit. “Ugh, smells like old farts.”
Gawyn’s right. Something either died in here or they’ve got a miniature cow farm tucked inside. At least the air is breathable. “Stay here,” I say, as I float forward, into the belly of a beast capable of wiping out entire cities.
Floating inside an orbiting super-weapon isn’t something I tend to do often. And the smell has got me spooked—so I lead with my C130 aimed high. It’s cramped inside, like a soda can just big enough for a human. I float through the entrance tube into what must be a cockpit and—holy shit!
I fire my weapon three times with deadly accuracy; two to the chest, one to the head. Too bad the bastard is already dead; shots that precise and that quick would’a gave me braggin rights. But this guy is a rotting heap. His skin is tight and dry, wrapped around his skull like a facelift for the dead. He’s probably been here for years, maybe hundreds, with nothing to break down his flesh. Nothing but a human-sized stick of jerky now.
For a dead guy, he packs a lot of attitude. His dried lips are frozen in a sinister grin and his two middle fingers are extended toward the entrance hatch. This guy died knowing he would eventually be found. Definitely Mooners. No one else is this fanatic, to deliver a message hundreds of years after his death. A thought occurs to me; if this guy is dead, who is picking targets and firing this hunk of junk?
Insomnia and Seven More Short Stories Page 8