by Simon Morden
“Yeah. They did.” He hawked up more slurry. “We need to get cleaned up. Everyone stay together. No one gets left behind.”
He disentangled himself from Valentina, and used her shoulder to stand. His leg tried to fold under him, and he forced it to straighten. When he looked down, there was something sticking out of his calf. It was too big to be called a splinter—he’d been impaled by a pencil-width shard of wood that was going to cause more damage coming out than it had going in.
His left arm was still numb. He touched it with his right, pinched the skin roughly. Nothing. It seemed to be the least of his problems; at least it didn’t hurt anymore.
He limped away, heading toward the gap between the shrouded mountains of masonry that should have been the road heading toward Oxford Street. The buildings on either side had shed their fronts and exposed their rooms. Chimneys had barged through roofs and fallen through floors.
The destruction gripped him with a cold, studied fury. They’d only just cleaned up after the Jihad and the Outies. The scars of the earlier missile strikes were isolated. This had ripped a crater in the historic center of the city, erasing landmark after landmark, spewing poison into the air he was being forced to breathe and contaminating the ground he walked on.
He slipped and slid on a drift of rubble, climbed to the top, stumbled down the far side. The heavy particles in the cloud surrounding him were falling like rain, and the sky began to brighten. The tops of broken buildings peered down at him, misaligned and jagged. There were cracks in the road, too, where water seeped out as springs and puddled in the gutters. Sewers had failed, bending the road surface down in some places, and in others leaving gaping holes that brimmed with darkness.
They navigated all the hazards in their path, even when post-explosion settling caused something close by to come crashing down. There’d always be a warning noise first, a tremor in the ground. Enough time to back off or run forward, out of the path of the slow tumble of bricks and timber, of stone and steel.
A signal: Petrovitch hooked himself up to the connection, and called for help. “Hey.”
[Your capacity for survival surprises even me. How injured are you?]
“We’re all pretty much hosed. Call it fifteen barely walking wounded. I don’t know how hot we are—we could be dead already.”
[There is a decontamination station being set up at the Marylebone entrance to the Oxford Street mall. Make your way there.]
“Tell me about the damage.”
[From the relays we have lost, buildings have been either completely or partially demolished for a radius of seven hundred and fifty meters from the origin. Some inside have survived, some outside have not. No significant damage has occurred beyond one thousand two hundred meters. Buckingham Palace is in ruins, the Westminster embankment is breached, and the old Parliament is flooding. The temporary bridge at Lambeth has been destroyed.]
“Ah, chyort. And we were doing so well.”
The mall, so carefully reglazed after the devastation wreaked on it by the Paradise militia, was a sea of bright crystal under a span of naked girders. The empty spaces behind the blank shop fronts were a jumble of fallen ceiling tiles and swaying light fittings.
[You should know that you are currently presumed dead. The EU has summarily revoked all visas to U.S. passport holders, all diplomatic staff are being expelled, and all U.S. assets are frozen. The Union government will be in emergency session from eighteen hundred hours. What is to be your response?]
“My response, or the Freezone’s response?”
[Are they not the same?]
“Yeah. They’ll get it soon enough.” The exit to Marylebone Lane was just ahead and, as promised, a large white tent had been set up just beyond the doors. Vans emblazoned with red crosses were parked behind, and figures in white suits and respirators were waiting for them.
Petrovitch wasn’t looking forward to this. He stepped up first, partly because it was his job to lead, but mostly because he just wanted to get it over with.
The decontamination team was working two streams: while he was screened with radiation detectors, Tabletop was pushed shivering into the other lane. The counters clicked lazily as they were turned on, then when held close to his body, started to chatter and buzz.
One of the medics ripped the seal on a sterilized packet of surgical scissors. “Sorry, Doctor Petrovitch,” he said, and started to cut his way through Petrovitch’s clothing from neck to groin. He repeated the action on the back, then started on each leg.
His exoskeleton needed to come off, too and, fortunately, someone had a tool kit with the right-sized wrench. The batteries strapped to his body were snipped free: the tape that held them in place was ripped off, leaving red weals across his chalk-white skin. They tried to take his computer from him, too, but that was a non-negotiable. It went inside a plastic bag, knotted around the cable, and he held tightly on to it.
Naked now, apart from his boots. The laces were cut, and he stepped out of them, then each sock in turn. While his clothes were bagged up in bright yellow polythene, he was screened again.
The radiation was lower this time, but there was something in his right eye, an embedded particle of a short-lived radionuclide.
“It’ll have to come out, I’m afraid.”
“Yeah. Figured.” He kept on looking dead ahead, but in the corner of his vision, Tabletop was being treated in the same gentle but thorough manner. Scissors hadn’t been able to cut her stealth suit, so she’d had to climb out of it. She was as exposed as he was, and it only ever felt wretched and frightening.
The medic opened up some sterile forceps, and slid the ends around Petrovitch’s eyeball. He tightened his grip, twisted through a right angle, and the device disengaged with a click.
It went in the bag with his clothes.
He was checked again. No more hot spots. He was ushered forward and into the tent, and the next man in line replaced him.
His wounds were dressed. The stick in his leg was cut out and checked for radiation, then the torn skin was sewn shut and covered with a waterproof bandage. The holes in his broken arm were more of a problem.
“Just leave it,” said Petrovitch. “I’m going to lose it anyway.”
The shower was neither hot nor cold, but the water was at least plentiful. He couldn’t wash himself, and had to submit to the ministrations of another. Across the tent from him, behind a screen and under another shower unit, Tabletop scrubbed herself down.
He gargled and spat. Repeatedly. He blew his nose and had it irrigated with dilute peroxide. His ears were reamed. The sponges went into another yellow bag, but the water just drained away.
They screened him again, passed him as being good enough, and moved him up the line. The next anonymous medic took his blood—more than Petrovitch thought strictly necessary—and neatly labeled the filled phials by hand.
He was issued with a white coverall, hospital slippers, and a red blanket. The last in line held up the tent flap for him, and he shuffled into the daylight.
A man in green scrubs was sitting in the back of one of the vans. He had an electric boiler running. He lifted a mug up and waggled it.
“Cup of tea, sir?”
If Petrovitch had had any tears left, he would have cried.
“Coffee? Tell me you have coffee.”
“Certainly, sir.”
It came freeze-dried out of a packet, and he had two in the same mug. It was hot, and strong, and tasted like angels dancing in his mouth. He sat on the back step of the van and was joined by Tabletop, who was soon nursing her own drink.
“They did it,” she said.
“I know. I did what I could. It was almost enough.” He sipped more of the scalding brew. “It could have been a lot worse.”
“How?” She squeezed water from her hair and let it dribble on the ground.
“We didn’t lose anyone. Sure, we have a yebani great crater and kilometer of crap radiating from it. We can just shovel the dirt back in a
nd pat it down, but we can’t replace people. And look, they missed. They missed Michael, and they missed me. Everything they wanted to achieve, they didn’t.”
“They used a nuke, Sam.”
“Yeah. Finally, they’ve made a mistake. Your lot.” And he shrugged. “Okay, not your lot anymore. They’re good. A couple of times, we’ve had luck on our side, but this is the first time they’ve really screwed up. We had cameras at ground zero. We’ve got video of two reporters being shot, and if there’s one thing even the most partisan journo hates, it’s someone deliberately killing another journo. We’ve got global sympathy.”
“I don’t want sympathy,” she said baldly. “I want revenge.”
“Oh, we’ll get it all right. But it might not look how you want it to.” He glanced across at her with his one eye. “You prepared for that?”
Unperturbed by his empty socket, she looked back. “What are you going to do?”
He scratched at his nose and smiled slyly. “Something… wonderful.”
34
A phone rang. It was an ancient phone still attached to a copper wire, and no matter the degree of sophistication that was plugged into the back of it, the phone itself hadn’t been changed for thirty years.
It had been originally installed to prevent wars. That was its sole purpose and, so far as the potential combatants were concerned, it had worked. Until now.
A man—a junior functionary whose job description was to make sure important people had everything they needed—was alone in the room when the phone rang. He had a brief moment of panic, and he shouted for help, before recovering enough to pick the receiver up and hold it to his ear.
“Hello?”
“Yeah, you’re not President Mackensie.”
“No sir. My name’s Armstrong. Joe Armstrong.”
“Well, Armstrongjoearmstrong, I’m Samuil Petrovitch, and your boss has just nuked my city. To say I’m just a little cross about that would be an understatement, but I’m kind of assuming that your president couldn’t give a fuck about that. Unfortunately for him, I’ve made it my job to make him care. So, Joe—you’re a pretty straight-up sort of guy, yeah? I can trust you to pass on a message. Can you do that for me, Joe?”
“Yes.” Armstrong was having trouble breathing. “I can do that.”
“The message is this: I want to talk to Mackensie, and I won’t go away until I do.”
Petrovitch heard the handset being placed on the table. He had no doubt that it was a solid slab of antique wood, highly polished and clutter-free.
It was quiet for a few moments, then he could hear voices approaching. Armstrong was one, and there were others. They seemed anxious.
The phone was picked up again, and an older voice spoke. It was one that was used to both issuing and obeying orders.
“This is Admiral Malcolm Arendt of the United States Navy. Who is this, and how did you access this system?”
“Didn’t Joe say? I had such high hopes for him, too. Or is the problem with you, Admiral? Maybe Joe did say, and you didn’t believe him because you thought my atoms were floating around in the atmosphere somewhere over France.”
A hand muffled the mouthpiece, and the admiral called out to the rest of his audience. “It’s Petrovitch.”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you. Now, you’re not Mackensie either. They’re all in the Situation Room, right? You can patch this call through—I’d do it myself, but why should I do all the work?”
“President Mackensie does not talk to terrorists.”
“Can I remind you who just toppled Nelson’s Column? It’s lying there across Trafalgar Square, and Nelson’s head has come off. That picture is currently running on every news network on the planet. Even your own. If I can stomach talking to Mackensie, he can have the grace to sit his scrawny arse down and talk to me.”
“President Mackensie does not talk to terrorists. I do not talk to terrorists. No one in this administration talks to terrorists.”
“Fine. You don’t want to know how your country dies. I can understand that.”
“I… what?”
“Not only did you not get me, you didn’t get Michael,” said Petrovitch.
“Michael?”
“The AI. It has a name: Michael. That’s who you’ve been trying to kill; the same Michael that the Vatican are about to declare to be alive. Not that you care about that any more than you did when you thought it was just a machine. Sorry, I’ve distracted myself. Me and Michael: between us, we’ve decided that you’re just too dangerous to have around anymore, and the world would be a better place without a bunch of nuclear-armed fundamentalist xenophobic psychopaths. Sorry it had to turn out this way, but hey.”
“You’re threatening to destroy the United States of America. You and whose army?”
“Yeah. The last time someone said that to me, I surprised them by turning up with, you know, a whole army. Prepare for the New Machine Jihad, Admiral.”
“We can deal with the AI, Petrovitch,” said Arendt. “We can deal with you, too. Now get off this line.”
“Just one more thing, Admiral. If you isolate your network now, the virus routines we’ve installed across your country’s infrastructure will no longer be able to talk to Michael. If that happens, they’ll turn off every computer they’re hiding in, and I’m sure you know just how difficult it is to get these things restarted once they go down. You’ll lose everything, for a very long time. You’ll be reduced to the nickels and dimes in your pocket.”
“Anarchy. You’re talking about Anarchy.”
“Modified. So hold off on your kill switch. Of course, you’ll want to check if I’m bluffing: but I did the same thing to the Freezone earlier on today, and if you can find anyone who’ll still talk to you after what you’ve done, they’ll confirm the sudden and total shutdown. I had an AI to help me clear up my mess, though, so I imagine your pain will last an awful lot longer than ours did. Years, probably. How are the NSA doing at clearing up the last outbreak, by the way?”
There seemed to be a lot of people running in the background, running and talking hurriedly over phones. Of course, they were trying to trace him: that exercise was doomed to failure, but he’d have been disappointed if they hadn’t tried. Some of the conversations were about activating assets within the Metrozone: again, the likelihood he’d accounted for every CIA agent didn’t come with a cast-iron guarantee.
Some of the discussions were more technical—how he had hijacked the satellites involved and how they could take them back—but most of them were just shouting commands to check every piece of software anything important depended on.
“What do you want, Petrovitch?” growled Arendt.
“I told Joe, and now I’m telling you. I want to talk to Mackensie, and, while I’m on, the rest of the National Security Council. Right now, you have a choice: we can go to war, or we can talk.”
Admiral Arendt gave his considered response. “We don’t talk to terrorists.”
“Is that your final offer? You don’t even want to tell Mackensie what I told you? Let him decide?”
The phone went dead.
Petrovitch gave it a few moments, and rang again.
It was answered immediately. It was neither young Armstrong, nor old Arendt. “Brandon Harris.”
The call had been taken in the Situation Room. Because Michael had already hacked the cameras attached to all the workstations around the periphery of the room, and the one aimed down the length of the long central table, Petrovitch could finally see his adversary.
The president was at the far end, his thin white skin barely covering the outline of his skull. He leaned back in his leather chair, almost amused by the tension around him.
“Dobre den, Secretary Harris. Have I got your attention yet?”
Over the background clamor, a sound familiar to the entire globe cut through: a gravelly throat-clearing. President Mackensie was about to speak.
“Go to Defcon one.”
�
�NORAD have just told us they’ve detected multiple launches from sites in Russia, China and off both our eastern and western seaboards.” Harris leaned in on the phone. “What have you done?”
“Me? What have I done? You might think it’s only one lousy nuke in some shit-hole European city, but the rest of the planet seems to disagree. You might want to put me on the speakers now.”
He didn’t. He put the phone on mute and turned to the table and those seated around it. “Mister President. Petrovitch wants to speak to you.”
“And what would be the purpose of that, Mister Harris? That boy is a potty-mouthed heathen liar, and we should have dealt with him a long time ago rather than leaving that to others.”
“That boy has just coordinated a massive first-strike against us.”
“He is not the cause of this.” Mackensie sat up and raised his gaze to the video screens: satellites were tracking rocket plumes rising high into the atmosphere. All the trails were beginning to bend toward the North American continent. From the Steppes, from the Asian deserts, from the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, lines were beginning to describe the writing on the wall. He spoke in his measured preacher’s voice. “Our enemies have been waiting for this moment for decades, but we will not be cowed: let them pour out the goblets of wrath they have stored for us. God is our mighty fortress.”
Admiral Arendt took his seat at the table. “Mister President, SkyShield is ready.”
“Then you may proceed.” Mackensie watched intently as the tracking stations began to lock on to their targets. Each incoming missile blinked from red to yellow as it was matched with an orbital weapon.
Then to blue.
“Sir. That’s…” Arendt slid backward on his wheeled seat toward one of the workstation personnel. “That’s just not possible.”
Mackensie tapped his lips with a bony finger. All the highest missiles were blue, and more were cycling through the colors as they rose. “Malcolm, there appears to be a problem.”
Arendt was dividing his precious time between receiving information and regurgitating it. “SkyShield components are tagging the inbound birds as friendly.” He stopped again to listen to the whispering voice in his ear. “We can’t shoot them down.”