Ascendance

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Ascendance Page 20

by John Birmingham

*

  They made better time on the southern side of Grand Central. The crowds were still ferocious, but they weren’t massing as badly as they had been uptown. At least not on Park Avenue. They were turning on each other though. Fighting for the buses still running. Looting food stores and diners and even high-end restaurants.

  Dave and Karen were free running again, saving energy. Dave could tell he’d drained himself maintaining that warp field. He was comfortable at the pace they were running – felt like he could keep it up for hours – but he worried that if they ran into real trouble he didn’t have enough gas left in the tank or dilithium crystals or whatever he needed for the warp core. Not for taking on a hundred-plus Hunn at once.

  He wanted to stop and eat, but he was starting to wonder where he could do so. Every second food outlet they passed seemed to be under siege or had already been cleared out. For the first time it occurred to him that hunger could be as much of a threat to him as the blade of a BattleMaster.

  ‘Cops confirmed the Horde are hitting transport and communication,’ Karen shouted over the noise of the mob. ‘Emergency services infrastructure. Hospitals. Fire stations. But not cop stations. They sound like Hunn and Grymm too. Main-force infantry deploying in Talon order. And they’re avoiding counter-force operations.’

  ‘And in English that would mean?’

  ‘They’re refusing battle with cops and military units in the city. They’re even withdrawing in the face of half-organised civilian resistance. Gun clubs, gang bangers, anyone with enough firepower, they just won’t engage. The city’s big enough that there’s plenty of other targets.’

  ‘There were cops and soldiers back at Grand Central,’ Dave shouted.

  ‘Not many and not well organised yet. They would have been chopped to pieces if we hadn’t turned up.’

  They were moving quickly, but not as fast as they had earlier. The median strip which had provided a highway through the middle of the crush was now as crowded as the pavement and roadway. Car horns blared and sirens howled. Dave heard gunshots and occasionally automatic weapons fire, but it sounded distant. They veered left at E37th, a cross street with slightly less congestion, and Karen led them over to Lexington. The going here was easier and they made good time until the mobs thickened up again near their destination.

  The crowd here moved with a sense of purpose tinged with fear, responding to police guidance to stay off the streets and proceed to the armoury. Casualty checkpoints protected by street cops, detectives and ESU officers triaged people in a methodical manner. Street vendors sold their wares while food carts fed people under the watch of heavily armed police officers.

  Dave stopped for souvlaki, and Karen did not object. She was also becoming worried about how much energy they had burned through. A uniformed cop with an assault rifle made sure they were fed when he recognised Dave. Getting away, they still had to warp momentarily when the crowd surged around them.

  On E31st Street they found a quartet of Hummers with a motley collection of bikers on Harleys, all armed, moving down the street toward the river.

  Karen nodded her approval. ‘Someone made a good call, arming them.’

  ‘This is America, nobody had to arm them,’ Dave said. God knows his brother alone could have armed a whole chapter of the Hells Angels.

  Overhead they could hear the hammering blades of helicopters and other aircraft mixed in with the sound of jets roaring over the city. He tracked a steady stream of helicopters a few blocks off to his left.

  More troops, he hoped, or an effort to get people out.

  They covered the last five blocks in a flash.

  ‘Whoa,’ said Dave, pulling up a few hundred yards short of 25th Street. ‘Might be time to hit pause.’

  The hulking Armoury of the 69th Regiment was besieged, but not by the Horde. Thousands of civilians crowded the streets around the dark stone flanks of the massive fortress.

  The crowds were so dense there was no easy avenue of approach to the main entrance. A platoon of infantrymen, with rifles unslung and bayonets fixed, held the gaps between half a dozen Humvees parked in a loose half-circle to secure the entryway, a double-height stone arch deep enough that it formed a tunnel of sorts into the stronghold. Occasionally the soldiers would part just far enough to allow a few civilians through. The press of the crowd was so great those lucky enough to be permitted entry had to be dragged from the crush by squads of troopers while other soldiers and some cops reinforced the blockade. Whenever this happened the screeching, caterwauling protests of the mob were amplified into a white squall. The noise sounded less like human cries than a force of nature. Dave put an end to it, imposing stillness on the world.

  ‘Jesus, what a mess.’

  ‘It’ll be happening all over,’ Karen said. ‘People are trying to go anywhere they might feel safe.’

  ‘How we gonna get through that mob?’ Dave asked, not at all certain that she wouldn’t do something very Russian like cutting a path through with Sushi the magical sword.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Karen said. ‘But let’s find out.’

  They were able to get within two hundred yards of the barricade before further movement became impossible. There were no vehicles to use as stepping stones and they were too far from the clear area behind the semicircle of Humvees to make it in one prodigious leap. Not without taking the chance of landing on someone and probably killing them. The exploding rear window of the bus he’d jumped on to was a recent memory.

  ‘You ever crowd surf?’ Karen asked.

  ‘Er, maybe. When I was drunk but . . .’

  That was all she needed. The one-time gymnast backed up a few yards, measured her run and before Dave could protest she’d launched herself at the crowd, reminding him in her last three strides of an Olympic athlete attacking a raised balance beam. He half expected her to perform some double reverse overhead twist, but she merely bounded into the air, landing on the shoulders of a big, thick-necked man, with an agility that should not have surprised him. What did surprise him was the way the man didn’t flinch or buckle, but then why would he? He was only experiencing the transfer of energy for a fraction of a second.

  Karen did not pause or look back. Like a fire walker moving across a glowing coal bed, she hurried over the crowd. Dave had done something similar, he supposed, back in New Orleans, when he was only just unwrapping his brand-new gifts for the first time. He’d leaped and climbed onto the high, steeply pitched roof of a church to go after a Sliveen archer which had been using the steeple as a sniper’s nest. In that first rush of wonder at the changes which had so transformed him, he hadn’t doubted for a second that he could do such a thing. He’d seen it was possible and he’d gone for it. Watching Karen disappear across the heads of the crowd he could see this was possible too.

  If the laws of classical physics hadn’t changed – okay, yes, objectively they had – and the kinetic energy of a non-rotating object of mass, ‘m’, travelling at a speed, ‘v’, was still . . .

  ‘Oh fuck it.’

  He followed her across the top of the crowd. It was surprisingly easy and the chances of anyone exploding when he hit play again were probably very small.

  *

  The 69th Infantry, New York’s own ‘Fighting Irish’, was a regiment of such storied renown that the staffs bearing its colours were one foot longer than the standard length authorised for normal and much less vaunted units. From Bull Run to Baghdad, the 69th had fought. On this dark night of September, they fought in the concrete canyons of their home town; one understrength light infantry battalion supported by two superheroes, elements of the Emergency Services Unit of the NYPD, a fifty-strong detachment of the Patriot Guard on Harley Davidsons and an FBI SWAT team which, coincidentally, had just a few days earlier been tasked with arresting one of those superheroes.

  But that was before she was special.

  Dave landed in the area kept clear by the platoon and their improvised stockade. The bikers of the Patriot Guard had been pres
ent for his brother’s funeral, which was more than Dave had managed. They mingled with steel workers, gang bangers and a trio of heavily armed drag queens. Dave hurried up the steps, eager to put the desperate scenes behind him. He caught up with Karen in a vast auditorium space, filled with cots and blankets and hundreds of refugees. They were all caught outside the warp bubble, and he could see the fear and exhaustion on their faces as though each had been photographed especially to haunt him. But he could also see that the animal terror which animated the mob outside was not present in here. For the moment, these people felt safe, or at least a little safer than they had a short while ago. Such a profound difference, he thought. A few steps and they were delivered from evil.

  Maybe.

  ‘We should probably find Heath and the others, or at least whoever’s in charge, before I flip the switch again,’ Dave said. ‘We can get some food here, fuel up.’

  ‘This way,’ Karen said, heading off at a fast walk that was closer to a jog. He followed her through the crowds of displaced New Yorkers. Most were women and children, but a surprising number of them were grown men too. Single guys, like him.

  ‘Who are these guys?’ he called after Karen.

  ‘Family, I’d say,’ she called over her shoulder, not slowing or looking back at him.

  ‘Lot of guys,’ he said, swerving around a cot on which a man in an expensive suit sat with his head in his hands.

  This time she did stop and turn around.

  ‘You really are a dinosaur, aren’t you? A quarter of the complement of this regiment is probably female. Could be more. They’ll have brought their partners in too.’ She shook her head, as if amazed at his ignorance. ‘Just keep up, would you?’

  ‘You seem to know this place well,’ Dave said as they left the auditorium and plunged into a long stone corridor with rough-hewn walls. ‘Did you, like, spy on it or something? I mean, no biggie if you did. We all got our jobs and stuff, but . . .’

  She laughed at him.

  ‘No. I didn’t spy on them, Hooper. The army rents out these spaces all the time. Deb balls, fashion parades, gallery shows. I’ve been here before. As a curator, not a spy.’

  The corridors were poorly lit and over crowded, but nowhere near as catastrophically as the streets outside. The military personnel they passed wore battle dress uniform. Dave could recognise that sort of thing now. His brother would be amused. The soldiers all wore sidearms and many of them carried assault rifles. He saw magazines and hand grenades clipped to webbing and many of the troops wore helmets with night vision rigs. For every soldier he saw, there were another two or three civilian-looking types carrying a motley assortment of weapons and gear. They turned off the main hall floor and proceeded down a crowded corridor. Those not in gear were in the process of shuffling past with tablets, files and maps. At one door a line of men and women in civilian gear stood waiting to talk to a soldier inside.

  ‘They’re arming anyone who can be halfway trusted with a weapon,’ Karen said. ‘I approve. This, at last, is very Russian.’

  She turned down another corner, past a drinking fountain, through a hallway covered on both sides by pictures and paintings which depicted the unit’s long history.

  ‘Not Russian. Just practical,’ Dave said.

  ‘Okay,’ Karen said as she put her head around a door to peer into an office. ‘We found them.’

  21

  The small band of gallant heroes, of scientists and soldiers tasked with saving the world, was watching TV in a tight conference room. Dave and Karen wouldn’t have to crawl over a table to find a seat but it was close-quarters filled with bad coffee, stale sweat, and leftover pizza. Dave kept them in suspense, literally, for a few moments longer while he scoffed down some pizza and checked out the scene in the cramped briefing area. Heath was there, looking even more severe and judgmental than usual, and Emmeline, bruised and scraped and bandaged back together after Omaha. She looked like she’d dropped a few pounds. She looked kind of hot, actually, a little sleeker and all roughed up like that. It took the polish off her very English . . .

  ‘Hooper,’ Karen snapped. ‘I’m right here.’

  He threw up his hands.

  ‘I’m just getting ready is all. I didn’t do so well last time I spoke to these guys.’

  Zach Allen and Igor, big gay Igor, had crammed in as well. They were outfitted in full combat harness, and both men packed serious-looking weapons, assault rifles with underslung grenade launchers. Pouches for the bomb throwers were heavy with fat, bullet-shaped rounds. Igor also carried over his shoulder the long brutal-looking sniper rifle he’d used to put down the Tümorum. Compton was missing, of course. Another man in the same grey digital camouflage as the soldiers sat at the head of a dark wood conference table which dominated the cramped confines of the room. From his age and the fact that he was the only one sitting down, besides Emmeline with her injuries, Dave supposed him to be some sort of higher-up.

  ‘You know him?’ he asked Karen.

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ she snarked. ‘He’s the guy in the army uniform. Moscow totally told me to keep a close eye on him. Are we done?’

  No, he wasn’t. Now that the moment had arrived, Dave knew he really wasn’t ready for it. Annie would laugh, harshly, but he’d never been one for conflict. Dave was happiest when he was . . . happy. As dumbass simple as that sounded. And falling out with people, feuding with them, carrying grudges and measuring slights, all that shit, that wasn’t the path to happiness. He hated it. In his heart, he just wanted to get along. But others weren’t like that. Not his wife, and not the crazy KGB monstr huntr he seemed to have fallen in with, that was for damn sure. And none of these guys, either. Not Heath with his Old Testament severity, nor Emmeline with her uppity fucking Asperger’s, and certainly not Igor. Not with everything he loaded into that swing he took at Dave back in Nebraska.

  Maybe Zach, though.

  Zach was one of those rare Christians who seemed to practise all the preaching. He didn’t look it, encased in body armour and weaponry, but he was the forgiving type. His brand of faith left him no option.

  Dave dropped out of warp, causing the map of Lower Manhattan which covered the table to flutter slightly in the breeze of displaced air.

  ‘Hi. Thought we’d pop in.’

  The older guy seated at the desk jumped in surprise. He was unused to having people materialise in front of him with no warning.

  ‘The fuck?’ he gasped, before seeming to realise what had happened. ‘It’s him, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Emmeline. ‘It’s Super Dave.’

  ‘And Aeon Flux,’ said Igor, studiously avoiding eye contact with Dave by way of staring at Karen. She was worth staring at, Dave thought, but not if your tastes ran to Töm of Sweden. Maybe Igor was diggin’ on all the leather she wore.

  ‘Dave, thank you for getting here,’ Heath said. ‘I’ll assume it was a hell of a commute.’

  He used a remote to pause whatever they’d been watching on the television, some video of a juvenile Thresher by the look of it. ‘This is Shane Gries, Colonel, US Army. He is the acting commander of all forces south of 42nd Street.’

  ‘Mr Hooper,’ said the colonel, but like Igor his eye was drawn to the striking figure of the woman with Dave. Torn and bloodied leathers, filthy blonde hair tied back in a rough ponytail, a vicious-looking antique samurai sword angled across her back.

  ‘Where is Colonel Rowe?’ Karen asked.

  Gries sighed. ‘I’m afraid he is dead, decapitated by one of those things wielding a machete the size of a light pole.’

  ‘This is my, er, friend . . . Karen,’ Dave said. ‘She kills monsters too.’

  ‘We know who she is, Dave,’ Heath said, and turning to Karen, Dave thought Heath might salute her. The moment had that sort of feeling about it. Instead, he offered his hand in an unusually casual manner. ‘Colonel Varatchevsky, I’m Captain Michael Heath, US Navy.’

  She hesitated for a brief moment before taking his hand in her
s. ‘Gentlemen, I’m sure I’m delighted to meet you.’

  Dave had half expected her to let the cover fall away. But she didn’t start speaking in some thick Slavic accent. If anything her waspy, New England manner was preppier than ever.

  ‘This armoury has always been a special place for me. I was MC here for the Michael Kors show during Fashion Week.’

  ‘And how are you, Doc?’ Dave asked Emmeline, aware of how difficult she’d be finding her proximity to him. ‘You doing okay? With all your scrapes and bruises and . . . you know crushing on me and stuff.’

  The high colour of her cheeks turned a deeper shade of red, the colour spreading down her neck. He heard Karen snort in amusement.

  ‘Hooper,’ she said slowly. ‘I’m fine. Just leave me be. Let me do my job.’

  ‘Zach,’ Dave said, taking Em at her word. He couldn’t bring himself to say Igor’s name, simply nodding in the big man’s direction. The giant commando, for his part, seemed content to play his role by staring into the middle distance like some anonymous spear carrier.

  Karen clapped her hands, startling everyone.

  ‘So. This isn’t awkward at all. Colonel Gries, you’ve got an angry, terrified mob at the door, which I can guarantee you will act as a giant honey pot at some point in the next few hours, drawing the ravenous Horde down on you. And Captain Heath, you’ve no doubt had all sorts of adventures since you lost Captain Duhmerica here to the blandishments of the charming Agent Trinder. So perhaps you’d care to bring us up to speed while Colonel Gries figures out how to avert the horrifying massacre that’s shortly to unfold on his doorstep.’

  Dave broke the uncomfortable silence which followed by saying, ‘She’s not really with me.’

  ‘She has a point about the crowd,’ Gries said to Heath. ‘I’ve armed anyone I think can be trusted and pushed a roving perimeter out five blocks up to 31st Street, extending out to the East River and into Manhattan as far as Madison Square Garden. That is the closest thing I have to an LZ and the pilots tell me it is hairy enough getting in and out of there.’

 

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