by Jinn, Bo
“And what is that?”
“Balance! Plaisir et douleur. Dem fellas from the East Grid – dey got a word for dat…”
“…Karma.”
“Fameux!” broke the Cajun, with a raspy cackle.
Just as the other end of the passage was in sight. There was another profound motion from beneath and the loud rumble in the walls declined as the airship prepared for landing.
They emerged onto a walkway, at the head of a mass assemblage of soldiers, waiting in their assigned squads before the gates at the ship stern. T-minus five hours to assault.
“Well, live or die, som’n’ tell me dis de last time I’ll be seein’ ya, couyon,” Duguay raised his bottle one last time. “A vous” he toasted and then emptied the scotch into his gullet. “Zeerahb…” He belched, then threw the bottle aside. “À bientôt, commandant.” Then her went his way to join his squad.
The vast settlement came into view as the airship settled on its landing pad. The doorways opened, filling the fuselage with a cold draft of scorched air. The red sun disappeared over the horizon.
C. 5: Day 364
The war economy flourishes; warzones multiply. The martial world advances; the civil world recedes. Year by year, mile by mile, the battle-filled boundaries between the East and West widen, devouring everything in their path like wildfire. In three decades, the fire had not yet yielded.
The Eurasian warzones between the USE and the NSRRS comprised one of the more volatile sections of the Walls. The warzone belt cut diagonally from the very north of Russia down to the southernmost tip of the former Ukraine – the New Borderland. Territorial shifts of war ploughed through the land, toppling buildings, razing earth. Repeated skirmishes and reprisals reduced whole provinces to piles of rubble. For everything the martial world built, there was a price to be paid in blood and destruction. That is the rule.
As soon as war touched the limits of a civil city, more than a third of the population was gone after the first week. The poorer classes, who did not have the money to move, had no choice but to stay and hope that the fire of war would pass. But, like a cancer, battle recurred again and again, feeding off its host until it was utterly destroyed.
Spooked herds of civilians drove through underground paths, sewer systems and tunnels, screaming, stampeding and trampling one another underfoot. In the background; a choir of explosions, gunshots and tremors, and the whinging of splitting rock and twisting metal as buildings crumbled, fell and crashed to the earth in smoldering piles. The air was tainted with smoke and fire. A sulphurous fume rose from the underground cesspools through the cracked earth, mingling with the scent of exposed wounds, molten tar and decomposition. Meanwhile, ghostly figures floated noiselessly across darkened paths above and below. Silhouettes skimmed the straggling rays of light in dark corners.
Be dark and impenetrable as night… Fall like a thunderbolt…
Saul watched them move like spirits. The cigarette cherry glowed through the dense, cold gloom. To his right, the 13 remaining men of Infil Squad 3 hugged the shadow-enclosed walls of the backstreet. The firefights from the abutting streets filtered through wall layers behind them. The passage to Building 4 was just further up the tunnel, and on the opposite end of the street, on the 10th and 15th floors of Building 6. S-Squad Two had their sights lined down the adjoining roads. It had been 10 minutes since D-Squads had given an update and they were starting to fall behind schedule. The tick-tock of the cerebral clock pecked away at his mind.
Finally, a transmission:
“Boss man.” Duguay’s voice came over the airwaves.
“What is it?”
“Six amicals headed your way off alley three.”
Seconds later, the echoes of fleet-footed boot heels surfaced through the requiem of shots and explosions and a group of silhouettes materialised at the end of the tunnel.
“Check your fire. Friendlies.”
The six silhouettes slipped through the tunnels, keeping their heads low. Every soldier in 5th Brigade was marked with caste signets and squad indices and their markings glowed through the scopes. He identified the six as men from I-Squad 8.
The squad leader approached, the Overclass caste markings flashed through the illuminating scopes over his eyes and a marred and tattooed face passed under the ghostly pale light.
“Building 5 is secure,” said the scar-faced overclass. “Last one to go.”
He took the cigarette and tossed it aside.
“Are R1 and R2 holding?” he asked.
“Yes, but it won’t be much longer before the heavies…”
They were interrupted by the sound of footsteps coming from the other side of the tunnel intersection. He silently gestured toward the doorway. The hand signals translated as “multiple enemies.” They immediately assumed firing squad positions around the door. They waited. The footsteps became louder.
The doors slid open.
“Hold fire!” The order was sharp but controlled. All trigger fingers froze.
A group of fleeing civilians staggered back in fright as soon as the doors opened.
“Molchat,” he pronounced, lowering his gun.
The children were instantly pulled back and took cover behind the adults, staring back with quiet condemnation from behind knocking knees. The expressions on their soot-blackened faces were of people expecting to die.
“Let them go,” he ordered.
The mock firing squad lowered their guns and reluctantly dispersed.
“If they’re interrogated at gun point, our cover will be blown.”
“That is a chance we will have to take,” he answered with a glower.
Just as the last of the civilians passed through, a child suddenly broke away from his mother’s hand. He watched the boy push urgently past the soldiers and stop right before him, eyes up-turned and gaping terribly. The boy’s mother scurried back, shout-whispering; “Shcho ty robysh!”
He looked back at the young boy’s trembling face.
“Chto ty delayesh?” he asked. “What are you doing?”
“Oni idut,” said the boy. “They are coming…”
The mother seized the boy by the shoulder just as the warning was uttered and pulled him away.
“Shadows. Now!”
The order was concise and the response was quick. They evaporated into the dark corners. Saul pressed up against the space right beside the doorway; the elite opposite on the left. Sure enough, more footsteps were heard approaching from the end of the path, light and steady steps, no voices nor the sound of heavy breaths. Martials. He estimated six. Three hand signals communicated the orders:
Two fingers hovering over the eyes -- “scouters.”
A thumb drawn along the neck, index finger up over the nose -- “keep it quiet.”
A clenched fist followed by a single raised finger -- “one live.”
There were nods of agreement from the shadows.
The doors slowly slid sideways. Rifle barrels peered over the threshold and scanned the tunnel path. The first two bodies came slowly through and marched straight forward, keeping their eyes down the tunnel. After the second two passed, Saul gave the signal with a bowed head.
The final two pairs of footsteps crossed the entrance. Blades out.
He sprung up first, latching his left arm around the chest; his right arm slung around the head, wrenching, he felt the sharp crunch and a snap as the skull twisted round, the body went limp and the man was instant dead weight in his arms. Blood showered his face from the open neck where the scar-faced overclass had driven his blade into his own mark and the split jugular sprayed profusely. The ghosts pounced from the shadows, stabbing, ripping rapidly and repeatedly, hands over mouths to muffle the dying screams. Blood frescoed the walls.
Five fresh corpses were laid down quietly. As instructed, one was subdued alive. Two men pinned the last East Grider to the floor. Just as he let out a yell of “Promo-” his shouts were cut short by a blow to the jaw and one to the gut for good m
easure. Once debilitated, the East Grider was hauled to his feet.
He summoned them with a wave and the East Grider was dragged up, head hung, slivers of blood falling from the broken jaw, wheezing through punctured lungs. He drew a blade, grabbed the martial by a tuft of hair and lifted his head up. When the features of the soldier’s broken face entered the light, a surge of distress shot through him like lightning.
It was a woman.
He looked upon the inflamed, sapphire eyes and the otherwise feminine beauty, marred by the hematoma forming over the fractured skull. She coughed and blood issued from her lips and sputtered across his face. “Prosto ubit menya.” she rasped through a crushed trachea.
He froze, mute, and his hands shook. Visions flashed through his mind in incoherent fragments, flashes of crimson and the screams of his nightmares. The woman’s dazed eyes locked on to his and a mad and blood-toothed leer extended across her broken face. The blade shook in his grip.
“Commander…”
He was roused by the voice. The cold sweat sizzled on his brow, chest rising and falling rapidly. He tore his eyes off the woman and blinked away the hallucinations. He shook off his passion, seized the woman by the hair once more and brought the tip of the blade to her neck. He could hear the muffled static Russian voices on her transmission.
“Tell them the area is clear,” his voice shook.
The woman martial cackled again. “Ubey menya,” she scowled.
“You do not have to die here.”
She coughed. Her head hung. With her head bowed, a single word was muttered:
“…Liar.”
The word repeated in his mind, spiralling and escalating into a constant shriek. He lapsed, and for a brief moment the immediate warzone and the whole war-ravaged world beyond it fizzled away. There was only himself and his reflection staring back in the sapphire eyes. Then the woman’s head shot up and she yelled, “ONI V’ZAKOUL- ach…”
Her eyelids flared.
The blood poured from her lips and flowed over the hand clutched around the blade. He pulled the blade back and felt the spine crunch and the blood spray, showering his face. The body was released and collapsed, the puddle of blood slowly forming.
The blade fell from his hands and clattered on the floor by the woman’s corpse.
“What happened?” The voices echoed in his head. “…Commander?” He staggered away, stopped and stared at his own blood-sodden hands. Visions burst into flame before his eyes, feeding the maelstrom in his mind. A sharp pain simmered in his gut and rose into his chest…
“Saul.”
A voice came over the transmission.
“Saul…”
The trembling hand stopped and clenched into a restrained fist.
“Saul, are you there?”
“Yes…” he answered with a gasp.
“Thought you’d bought it for a second there,” said Celyn. “We’re moving up to intersection two on North Street.”
“Where are you?” he asked, rapidly shifting his focus.
“Look down…”
He stopped pacing and tuned in to the clanking of his boot heels against the rain grate, and when he looked down into the sewer culvert, flickers of human forms zipped under the light directly below.
“How much longer?” he asked, rejoining his men in the shadows.
“Not sure. This is one hell of a mining operation. Maybe 10 minutes, tops.”
“The whole city is a battlefield. We cannot stay hidden for much longer.”
“Well, this wouldn’t take as long if we didn’t have to keep diverting civy traffic. What’s the situation on South Street?”
“Hold on.” He quickly adjusted the transmission signal. “Phase 4 update.”
The firefights on the adjacent streets were escalating.
“Malachi…”
“Building 6 is secured,” Malachi’s low voice came through patches of white noise and a flurry of gunfire in the background. “Moving to secure Building 7 now.”
“We’re getting pushed back. How are things on R3 and R4?”
“So far so good. Still laying down diversionary fire. They’re not on to us yet.”
“That is about to change,” he warned, glancing over the bleeding corpses at his feet. “Be swift. Report back ASAP. We do not have much time.”
“Roger that. Breaching!” There was the loud explosion of the breach, followed by more shots before Malachi’s signal disappeared.
“Celyn.”
“What’s the update?”
“Waiting on you.”
“Got it. We’re in position, drilling as we speak. We’ll work as fast as we can…”
“Couyon!” Duguay’s voice suddenly broke the airwaves.
“What now?”
“Goons movin’ in off North Street!”
“More company,” he murmured to his men.
They pressed up against the outer wall, hugging their guns to their chests, muzzles barely scraping the light beams.
A gentle tremor started beneath their feet. The scar-faced overclass raised his head and looked round. “Tell me that’s not what I think it is…”
“They’ve got heavies,” the reply came not a second later.
“Shhh – ii – t – t!”
“How many?”
“Two.”
“… I’ve got them on radar,” said Celyn. “We’re ready for them. Let them come.”
“What about the civilians?”
“The tunnel’s closed off. No civvies down that path.”
“Do not engage,” he instructed. “Heads down. Wait for my signal.”
“What’s the signal?”
“You will know when it comes.”
Pressing closely against their little grottos of gloom, they waited.
Soon, the walls began to shudder, and instead of dissipating with the shockwaves of the bomb blasts and gunshots, the vibrations were constant and rose into a judder. Dirt and flakes of rock splintered off the tunnel ceiling as the screeching of the gas-guzzling turbines broke through the tumult, splitting stone and smashing concrete.
“Hold,” he instructed with an open hand.
“That’s it…”
Two hulking tanks ploughed down the road like mammoth armadillos. The first shadows of the East Grid martials appeared, zipping across the inner walls; first two, then dozens. Their lights grazed the fresh corpses. The seams of the tunnel walls started to break.
“Hold.”
“Little more…”
The tanks passed over the sills, swallowing up the light from the alley, and for a moment there was utter darkness and din, blotting out everything save for the sulphurous fumes, the smell of the fresh blood rising from the bodies, the deafening banshee-shrieking of the turbines and the sound of steel grating against stone.
“In three… two… one…”
“DOWN!”
An almighty “BANG!” shook the earth like a falling bolide. Three men were thrown off their feet. Then a second “BANG!” and a third and a fourth in quick succession. Concrete, tarmac shrapnel and torn flesh flew in through the apertures and showered from above, hysteria railed through the alley, aimless shots ricocheted off the walls and into the tunnel and the hail of sniper fire started to rain down.
He found his footing and hauled one of the toppled soldiers to his feet. “Building 4, now!” All 20 of them raced through the cloud of dust and debris, bent over, heads below the crossfire. Saul took point. “I-S-4, I-S-3 – moving to phase 5!”
“Roger that! Breaching!”
The explosion of the breach from the other side of the building was drowned out by the outbreak of gunfire in the alley. Blood splashed in through the apertures. As they were speeding up the tunnel, bodies stumbled off the streets and fell in their path, clutching their charred faces and writhing and yelling frantically. Barrels rose and fired, tearing their path clear. One after another, the bodies breasted the hail of bullets and fell; and they pushed on fast, treading over b
odies and mounds of fallen rock.
When they came to the end of the tunnel intersection, Saul hauled the shutter door aside and brought up the rear all the way to a dead end.
“Hold.”
He whipped his arm up in front of his chest and a section of the gear slid back from over a bright screen. He thumped his fist against an area of the tunnel wall and felt for hollowness.
“This is the section,” he said. “Lay out the charges.”
Two men came forward and squared up to the wall, drawing out thick black strips from their gear and laid them out like thick sections of duct tape in the shape of a wide frame. “Clear!” They dispersed at once. The masks on the headgear came down. “Breaching!”
The wall section vanished in a blast of smoke, rubble and ash.
They rushed forward, hurdling through fog and leapt down from the fresh opening in the tunnel wall onto the roofs of parked cars, then onto the basement floor. A symphony of blaring alarms wailed as the rest of the squads trailed in formation through rows of parked automobiles.
The stairwell door opened.
“Keep it silent.”
They ascended floor by floor, rifles scoping up, down, left and right. Their pace slowed with each storey they ascended. When they came to the 10th, he held out one hand, palm facing the ground, slowly approaching the door to the 11th floor hall. Four men came up on either side, backs up against the walls. He pressed his ear against the door and tried to listen in through the war in the backdrop. The noise was distinct. Voices
“Movement. Engage on my signal…”
Shouts were heard from the other side. Shots fired.
“GO LOUD!”
A bullet whizzed right past his head and salvos of shots started to tear through the walls. Bodies hurled down the stairway and there was a loud thud, a growl and a moan. He turned just in time to see the rounds tear crosswise through two others, and sideways bursts of blood marked the line of fire. They fell and tumbled down the stairwell.