by TJ Martinell
There was no other choice but to join her. With just the revolver, I was light on my feet. I reached as she was throwing the boy over her shoulders. She hadn’t even bothered to inspect his wounds or determine if he was alive. I went to take him from her but she handed me her Thompson so she could better support the boy with both hands. I agreed, intending to chew her out later. I almost laughed as I held the gun with one hand.
Running down a small hill, we headed for the fence.
To our right, another figure emerged from the mist. I dropped down on one knee to shoot, but then realized they were not chasing us but fleeing as well.
His hands, covered in black leather gloves, pumped up and down like pistons as he scrambled down the hill and turned toward us. Uncertain of his intent, I aimed at him and made it clear I would shoot him.
He threw his hands up and waved, but still ran to me.
Then I got a good look at his attire. Military black leather boots with matching gloves. Dungaree trousers. The tail of his long black trench coat flying like he was a bird.
The uniform of the Examiner’s people.
“Move your ass, kid!” he yelled. Then pointed north behind him.
I glanced over my shoulder and instinctively ducked. I did not hear the shot as it tore through the gravestone behind me, leaving a neat hole in the top. I juked to the left and spun and moved in arbitrary directions. The distinct gunshots gave them away.
It was the ISA.
The Examiner man ran past me and for the fence. Faster without the trench coat, I caught up with him. He struggled to climb the fence while I hurdled over it and landed on the sidewalk. I recovered and helped Jean bring the boy over the fence. The short trip had fatigued her. I took the boy and gave back her Thompson. Covering me from the fence, I brought the boy into the car and placed him in the back. Jean hurried over and jumped into rear passenger seat.
The Examiner man made it over and approached us tentatively. There was no pleading in his voice.
“You’ll need my help.”
“How well can you shoot?” I asked. “Are you armed?”
“I had a rifle in my car, but the ISA must have it now.”
I pointed at the car, still aiming my revolver at him. “No tricks or I’ll blow your brains onto the window.”
“Fair enough.”
He got into the front passenger seat. Jean flashed a distraught glance at me but it disappeared as she realized like I did that we needed him. I handed him the Thompson plus the two magazine drums from the back. He handled the weapon with a sense of familiarity and stuck it out the window and fired blindly into the cemetery.
I shifted gears and got the car moving and headed for the nearest cluster of buildings where we could lose them. Dozens of ISA officers materialized from the mist in their black uniforms and rifles and approached the fence, firing off a few rounds before they disappeared.
Jean cradled the boy’s head in her lap. He was still alive. Eyes partially open. Raspy breaths. Chest rose barely. A thick red spot on his shoulder. She had the first aid kit open and was wrapping his shoulder as she had done to my arm.
“What the hell just happened?” I asked.
“It was a setup,” the Examiner man answered.
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
“Who were you talking to?”
I pointed at Jean with a casual gesture. He looked at her, raised his eyebrows, and then grinned at me.
“Not bad,” he muttered.
“You remember what I said about blowing your brains onto the window?” I replied.
“The boy was setup, too,” Jean said. “He asked you not to hurt him. Why would he say this unless someone said you would hurt him? He must have known they were there. He did not want to be there. They forced him to be there. They were also the ones who shot him.”
“I sure as hell didn’t,” the Examiner man said.
“Good thing,” I said. “If you had, I would have left you there.”
“Don’t insult me. We don’t shoot kids. It’s bad business to shoot civvies and kids. Anyway, they’re gonna have ravens coming down on us any minute. What are we gonna do about it?”
“We’ll stay close to the buildings. They can’t hit us there. Not without risking others around us. They won’t do that. The Tomcats will be the real problem. They’re faster, heavier, and have three inches of steel plating on them. A landmine wouldn’t blow them up.”
“They’ll bring in choppers, too,” the stringer said.
“Again, they can’t fly too low. Too many crashes. I know their policy. It’s gotten stricter.”
Riding up onto a barren sidewalk, I kept the car close to the decaying structures. Turning south there was a large grouping of tenement complexes. Some of them had entrances secured, required permission before entry. We wouldn’t get through, but the Tomcats would smash right over the barricades they had set up.
I drove up to the entrance and called out to the guard standing with an automatic rifle. He eyed me and sensed the distress in my voice and the trouble that came with it. He ordered me away with his rifle pointed at me. As he did a creaking and groaning announced the arrival of a Tomcat plowing its way through debris on the road. Its heavy wheels crushed the old cars in its path like aluminum cans. Atop the vehicle was a mounted machine gun, and next to it a man stood behind an EMP cannon.
The gunner swiveled on its turret base and aimed it at the car and fired. I nearly flipped the car over swerving to get out of the blast range. The Examiner man stuck his head out the window and shot at the gunner, hitting him several times. His bullet-proof vest protected him, but impact apparently knocked him out. The Examiner man disabled the EMP cannon along with the machine gun.
“Don’t bother with the tires,” I said. “They’re protected on both sides from being hit.”
“I noticed.”
“Got a name?”
“Griggs.”
I waited for him to ask for mine. He said nothing as he replaced the drum magazine and looked back out the window.
“We got a shitload more coming,” he said.
He didn’t exaggerate. A flock of ravens flew across Lake Washington, two helicopters flanking them like a pair of eagles. More EXO Tomcats were arriving in a convoy to our rear. They proved just as fast as the car, despite the modifications Hernandez had made.
We were going to be in a world of hurts, fast.
I pulled into the old University District. The oldest parts of the neighborhood had streets so narrow only one vehicle could drive through it. As we reached one of the single lane roads the armored car was forced to find another way around, hindered by too many obstructions to move through while maintaining the speed to keep up.
Meanwhile, the helicopters continued hovering above us.
Griggs fired the Thompson at an ISA vehicle that pulled onto the road ahead of us. He scored a direct hit on the right rear tire. It blew apart, the mass of rubber flying out into the air. It struck our car before landing on the ground. The vehicle leaned on its back-wheel axle, sparks glittering as it groaned against the pavement and finally stopped. Griggs put the Thompson down and demanded another weapon, saying it wasn’t going to cut it.
Jean searched the hidden compartment in the back seat and took out a .45 caliber pistol and a folding bolt action rifle.
Griggs took the pistol and the five full magazines that came with it. He leaned out the window and looked up at the sky as the sound of helicopter blades picked up. I drove right and away from the university grounds, coming closer to the Montlake Bridge. As we approached it I froze and slammed on the brakes, seeing a barricade of Tomcats at the bridge and sharpshooters installed in the bridge towers. Putting the engine in reverse, I turned the car around and headed for the nearest alternative route, the University Bridge. The one in Fremont was too far away. We’d be dead before we reached it.
We were driving along the road by the waterline when one of the IS
A weaponized drones appeared on our left. Hovering above us, it shifted right to left as though a hawk determining whether its prey was weak enough to be attacked. Griggs watched it but didn’t fire, knowing he couldn’t hit it at that range. He asked for the folding rifle from Jean. Putting it together, he loaded the large .50 caliber round and got up out of the car to place the bipod on top of the roof. He took little time before the shot, but the drone kept flying. He swore and snatched another round from the kit and reloaded. As he did, a section underneath the drones’ wings opened and two objects appeared. Dual lights flashed ominously.
There was no avoiding it.
I let go of the wheel and dove back to place myself over Jean. Her terrified face was the last thing I saw before the blast hit the side of the car and sent it rolling. I grabbed for the seat and Jean’s arm with my other hand and refused to let go as gravity pulled and pushed her away from me. My head thrashed up and down and against the door.
I wasn’t sure when the car stopped rolling. When I regained my senses, I was still in the driver’s seat. We had managed to land upright, but one side of the car had smashed into the side of a brick building.
Still recovering, I lifted Jean up and examined her. She was breathing heavily and had a cut down her neck, but otherwise appeared unharmed. I got her outside the car and to her feet. When Jean had regained her balance, she grabbed the boy from out the back. It didn’t seem the appropriate time to find out if he was dead or alive.
Griggs was near the street. He had jumped off the car just before the explosion. He was moving slowly with a severe limp in his stride. Fortunately, he still had the rifle with him.
Jean followed me up the steps to the entrance of the building. I tried to open the front doors, but they were securely locked. The windows were also barred. There was a long single-story building across the street dwarfed by two run-down brick structures. Occupants in the brick buildings looked at us cautiously. When I tried to call to them they vanished.
They were natives, people who had never left the neighborhood their whole lives. They weren’t friendlies, but neither were they hostile to us. As long as we didn’t bother them, they would leave us be.
An armored car appeared down the road, followed by a weaponized drone.
Too late for us to make a move. We would have to wait. Until Griggs gave us some suppressing fire to move under.
I signaled to Griggs and explained my plan in a few gestures. He nodded and hid in the foliage overlooking the building. He ignored the armored car approaching and raised the gun up at the drone. He waited until it stopped above the building to survey the wreckage. He fired, and this time his aim was true. The round pierced the front of the drone and sent it crashing into the street.
The armored car driver panicked and began firing in random directions while officers stormed out the back of the vehicle and added to the gunfire. When they could not find a target, they shot at the two brick structures. Screams and cries rang from the window as the faces disappeared just as bullets nipped at the sills.
Another shot from Griggs took one of the officers down; the rest scrambled for cover. I ran across the road and tossed a smoke grenade I had taken from the car. Jean followed me to the building, followed closely behind by Griggs. Around us, the natives had commenced taking pot shots at the ISA agents. It wasn’t often the ISA invaded their territory in such small numbers. Their aim left much to be desire, but it kept the officers distracted.
At the building, Jean kicked open the flimsy door and placed the boy on a stained mattress in the corner. I did a quick check of our ammo supply. It was low, but it was far better than if we had been caught inside the car.
Griggs looked at the boy on the mattress and scoffed. “He’s dead, sister. Deader than a two by four in a bonfire.”
She glowered and picked up the boy and carried him to me. Her voice was weak.
“He is coming with us, is he not?” she asked.
I didn’t look at the boy.
“Let’s figure out how to get out, first,” I said, thinking for a moment during a lull in the gunfire. “We walk to the bridge.”
Griggs stared at me.
“You gotta be shitting me. They’ll nail us good.”
“You have a better plan?”
“I’m fine sticking it out here. Sooner or later the ISA bastards will have to leave. I know this routine. The natives shooting at them right now will keep coming. There’ll be two thousand half-starved people who hate the ISA’s guts running this way in an hour if they don’t skedaddle fast.”
“Do you propose to wait it out until that happens?”
“Yeah. I’ve waited longer for worse things to pass by.”
A large armored van approached from the opposite side of the road and drove through the gunfire exchanged between the ISA and the natives. It stopped right in front of our building. The side door to the van opened and four men jumped out with machine guns, followed by another with a guided missile launcher on his back. As he fired it up towards the drone, the four other men set up positions near a group of disheveled natives and opened fire on the ISA cars, keeping them pinned down behind their Tomcats.
Tom jumped out and rushed into the building, carrying a compact rifle. He did not seem to notice Griggs.
“Time to go! Follow me!”
I took the boy and pushed Jean ahead. Griggs fired one last shot and hopped into the van with us. Tom confirmed we were all there before he joined us and called the men back inside. The van took several bullets to the hood, but all of them ricocheted off the armored plating.
The scene grew smaller and smaller we finally saw the totality of the damage to the area. Several buildings had been reduced to ruins by a helicopter attack. The red brick building was half decimated by machine gun fire and explosives. Meanwhile more and more natives both young and old emerged out of every corner and entrance as they raced toward the ISA position with rifles and pistols and improvised bombs.
Jean had the young boy in her lap again. He had all the appearances of a corpse, but as I touched his throat, I felt a weak heartbeat. Amazed, I placed my ear down at his chest, then a finger to his nose to feel his breath. I examined his eyes; they were partially open, just enough to see him look back at me. He attempted to speak but his lips fell back together.
Tom put away his rifle and came over to the boy and examined him closely. He seemed aloof, but his hands tugged at the boy’s wrist and neck with urgency. He placed his hand on boy’s chest. He then reached out and pushed back the boy’s eyelids.
The eyes looked back at him as they had at me. But now they were lifeless and cold. Jean’s eyes pleaded with Tom for hope, but he offered her none. Sniffing, she ran her hand through the boy’s hair. A moment later she was weeping and had the boy’s head close to her chest. She rocked him back and forth as though he were simply asleep.
Tom eyed Griggs sitting by himself in the back of the van, his hands covering his face. He wasn’t crying or grieved. He was afraid someone would recognize him.
“You’re wasting your time,” Tom barked. “I know who you are.” He turned to me. “How the hell did you get mixed up with a guy like this?”
“I ain’t so bad, am I?” Griggs muttered to me with half a smile.
“No, he ain’t,” I said.
“See?”
Tom situated himself so that his back was turned to Griggs. He bit on his lower lip and whispered that we’d talk later. He resumed his seat and took out a pack of self-rolled cigarettes and started handing them out to us. He even offered one to Jean, who took it and lit it up as soon as she finished wiping her tears away with the heel of her hand. Griggs watched us smoke with a ravenous glimmer in his eyes. He grinned and licked his lips as he held out a hand.
“I don’t suppose one of McCullen’s boys could be so kind as to offer me some of that fine tobacco,” he said.
Tom frowned, but offered the last one he had to Griggs, who bowed his head app
reciatively.
“Consider it payment for helping out my friend,” Tom said.
“Thank you, kindly.”
Tom whispered in my ear. “How did he get involved?”
“You know ‘em?” I asked.
“A little. Don’t want to say much now, but just wondering.”
“Like you said, we can talk later.”
***
SoDo resembled a militarized zone when we arrived outside the newspaper building. The streets were dotted with delivery crews, most of them foot soldiers paid to enforce the unwritten laws with a gun and a knife and any other weapon best fitted for the job. Cars outfitted with armored plating sat at both ends of the street. The entrance to the building had three times the number of usual guards equipped with surplus military rifles, hiding behind tank barriers.
As we got out of the van two men came and took the boy’s body from Jean. Some of the men eyed Griggs hostilely. I insisted he was not to be touched, a gesture which genuinely surprised him. Just before we parted he shook my hand and discreetly slipped a card into my pocket. I was led by the three guards to what I was certain would be McCullen’s office. Instead they marched me over to Olan’s door and without the normal ceremony opened it and led me inside.
Olan stood in front of his desk, phone in hand and pressed against his ear. The office was murky and stuffy from thick clouds of cigarette smoke pouring from his mouth and nostrils and the rather large mound of cigarette butts in the ashtray on his desk. The window was half-opened and the air coming in through it was just as foul.
He listened attentively to the voice on the other end, not saying a word. He did not seem to notice me or the guards as we stood in front of him, and when he finally did he jumped up in surprise and waved at the guards to leave us. They closed the door and with the room silent I could sense the trepidation coming from the person speaking on the phone. I could feel its effects on Olan, whose complexion had lost all its color.
Eventually Olan gave a monosyllable reply and hung up and pushed the phone farther down his desk. He took a final long drag on his cigarette and then added it to the knoll forming in the ashtray. He finally looked at me.