by Mike Morris
Someone walked towards him but said nothing.
"Please. Is someone there?" said Wing. "Please help me. There's been some sort of dreadful mistake. I haven't done anything. Please."
The footsteps walked around him in a complete circle before stopping in front of him. Wing flinched, expecting another a fist to his face or a boot in his balls, but his ankle reminded him of how stupid movement of any kind was.
"I'm just a government employee. I'm loyal. I don't know what anyone thinks I've done but I didn't do it. I'm innocent. Please." Wing's voice cracked with panic as he searched for some magic word that would get him out of there. "Honestly. Whatever it is, I can explain. There's just been a mistake." Silence answered him. The tears came once more. "Please," he sobbed. "I'm a good person."
Someone whipped the hood off Wing's head and he closed his eyes against the sudden brightness. He hesitated as he opened them again, scared at what might be waiting for him, aware of how naked he was before them. Guards, dressed in the uniform of the Chinese Imperial Army, with their faces covered by black helmets, were stationed in each corner. They were the embodiment of death. Anonymous. Lethal.
Song was trussed up in the chair next to him, equally naked, with a gag stuffed in her mouth. Her head hung down on her chest with her eyes closed. Blood dripped slowly onto the floor from a wound Wing couldn't see. At least she'd not witnessed his shameful lack of courage.
Technicians busied themselves with the monitors that covered every wall. They all must have been in the room with him the whole time, silently observing Wing's pitiful display, probably laughing to themselves at his pathetic naked body. Shame stirred inside Wing, fuelling just a little bit of anger but not enough to stoke up any flames of bravery.
" I...I am innocent... I've done nothing," he protested.
A hand pushed Wing's head forward and inserted a jack into his brain. It was worse than being electrocuted as his mind splintered into a million little pieces. But no data flooded in for Wing's consciousness to swim in, just white space, smothering him, drowning him, pulling the strands of his mind apart. Nothing but white.
White.
And then the world switched itself back on and Wing gasped in relief as coherent thought returned. Normally being jacked in made him feel like a master of the universe but they'd had showed him what it was like to be a slug beneath their heel.
"Do I have your attention?" whispered a man's voice in his ear.
Wing wanted to answer but he couldn't find the words. It was if his synapses had been disconnected and nothing was firing. He understood they were watching him and expected an answer, he knew he wanted to agree on some sort of instinctive level but where were the words? He searched the emptiness in his mind. Found something and tried to speak. Drool ran from the corner of his mouth as he moved his lips. "Grrrr....urrgh...yuuugh....Y-yus. Yes." The word snuck out with a feeling of immense relief.
"You've led us a merry chase tonight, you and your little friend here, but did you think we'd give up? Just let you go?" asked the voice from behind him. Who was it? Wing was too scared to think.
"I...I..." Again the words wouldn't come. The vocabulary seemed lost in the recesses of his mind. A chill down Wing's spine.
"Finding it hard to talk?" The voice leaned in closer. "The data stream works both ways. We can either feed in data or we can pull every little bit of information and knowledge from out. It is easier, of course, if you simply tell us what we want to know as it's not a delicate process. Much gets lost as we wade through your brain, hacking and slashing until we find what we want, causing irreversible damage. You'll be a vegetable at the end of it. If you are lucky."
His words struck home through the fog in Wing's brain. Panic flared up once more and he rattled and pulled against his restraints. He had to get out of there. The plexi-cuffs said otherwise, tightening as he struggled, biting into his skin and crushing the broken bones in his ankle. The fight left him as quickly as it arrived, leaving him panting and sobbing in the chair. His head dropped against his chest.
A hand lifted Wing's head. "Now we talk. Lie to me and I'll hurt you. Try and play games with me and I'll hurt you. Tell me the truth... well, if you want to survive this with at least some of your brain cells intact, the truth is the only hope you've got."
A shadow passed his shoulder. A hulk of a man, a man mountain. Wing let out a squeak of shock as he recognised the man. Only hours before, he'd tried to throw Wing off the escalator. He knew then he was going to die without a shadow of a doubt.
"You've met my associate, Mr Lok, before," said the voice. There was something about it that was familiar. It belonged to someone he knew.
Lok slapped Wing across the face, splitting his lip, rattling his teeth and breaking his thoughts. A second later, a backhanded blow followed from the other side.
"Where's Ziyi?" asked the voice.
"Wha... Where? Ziyi? I... I don't know..." Lok punched Wing's arm before he could say anymore. It was like being hit by a steel club and Wing couldn't stop himself screaming.
"Is she alive?"
"I...I...don't..." began Wing. Lok pounded down on his knee.
"When did you last speak to her?"
Lok didn't even wait for Wing to attempt an answer before he buried his fist in his stomach.
"Why are you doing this to me?" screamed Wing.
"Tell me what I need to know and we'll end your pain," said the voice.
"I don't know anything. I swear."
Laughter came from behind him, cold as death. "You thought we wouldn't notice someone hacking into our mainframe?"
"Please," sobbed Wing. "We were trying to save the Empire!"
The voice whispered in his ear. "Save it? From what?"
Tears ran down Wing's face. Snot dribbled from his nose. "Please let me go. I understand what's going on." Lok's eyes were cold and lifeless in front of him but the voice scared him more.
"Who else is helping you?"
"Please. No one... I..." replied Wing.
Lok stepped forward and punched Wing in the face.
"I don't know anything." He tried looking behind him to see who the voice belonged to, hoping to find some mercy. "Please."
"Plug him back in," commanded the voice instead.
Wing screamed. He thrashed around, jerking his head from one side to the other to stop the jack being inserted. Lok punched Wing in the nose. The bone shattered, spraying blood all over his chest and groin, stopping him dead. The jack slipped in with the all-too familiar chunk and Wing tensed, waiting for the white to flood into his brain. Nothing came though, leaving him only with the physical pain of his beaten body.
"Please, you have to believe me," begged Wing. "I'm innocent. I can explain..."
The white rushed into his brain, filling every part. His body went into convulsions as he fought to keep hold of his consciousness. And failed. The white chased after every thought, crushing them into nothingness. He may have screamed again, but he had no way of knowing. There was only the white. The colour of death.
23
Ziyi
Ziyi and Robert raced down the tunnel, joining the terrified citizens of the City fleeing before it was too late.
The police had come in hard. Four assault teams had attacked in four different locations. They blew the doors at each of their entry points, threw in flash-bangs to create even more chaos and then flooded in at speed with maximum aggression, unaware that the top levels were uninhabited. The troops weaved their way through the maze of corridors with infrared goggles attached and lazer scopes.
Outside flyers swarmed, bathing the Floating City in searchlights, pumping out even more drones in their wake as even more troops had gathered in preparation for a second wave. APCs loitered on the harbour side. Nothing was left to chance.
Ziyi watched everything happen on a multitude of screens set up in the City's own version of Control — a claustrophobic room with five operators working with ancient monitors, rigged together with a mishmash of wires and cab
les. Over-worked air-conditioning struggled to keep the temperature on the right side of bearable but the air in the room had long ago passed its best. Wu had brought Ziyi and Robert straight there after the alarms had gone off.
"They were searching the harbour for a while," said one of the operators, sweat dripping off his brow. "Then they turned their attention on us."
"They're looking for me," said Ziyi.
"Looking or tracking?" asked Wu.
Ziyi's hand drifted towards her lost ear. "I removed their tracker earlier."
Robert's mouth dropped. "It was in your ear? Shit. You did that to yourself?"
"I had no choice," replied Ziyi. "Can they reach the lower levels?"
Wu shook her head. "You saw the blast doors leading to the main hall. It would take more firepower than those troops would normally carry to gain entry. If they even find their way down here."
Ziyi watched the troops advance, weapons ready to open fire on any hostile target. "Assume they will. Assume they'll do anything to achieve their aims."
"They're hardly going to call down a missile strike on us," scoffed Wu, but the look on Ziyi's face brought home the reality of the situation. Her hand went to her mouth. "They wouldn't dare."
"Do you have evacuation protocols? You said there was a way to get out without going through the wire."
"Two hundred thousand people live here. We can't just abandon our homes."
"Are you willing to die for them?"
"Need you ask?"
"The police are splitting up," said one of the operators, a fresh faced kid who looked like he should still be in school. "Half of them are moving into the upper levels. The rest are heading to the elevator shaft."
"Another wave's coming in as well," said a second.
Wu clicked on a microphone. "Attention. Attention. This is Madame Wu. The City is under attack from police forces. We have reason to believe extreme measures will be used against us. Anyone who wishes to evacuate, should do so immediately through the tunnel link. Take only what you can carry. Anyone else who wishes to stay should either report to the armoury or find somewhere safe to wait until things are resolved. May the Heavens watch over us all." She turned off the microphone and took a deep breath. "Robert, you brought Ziyi here, you can get her out. Take whatever she needs from the weapons store and then be off."
Robert bowed. "I'm sorry. If I'd known..."
"Hindsight is a luxury none of us have." She turned to Ziyi. "Do whatever you have to save our Empire. Do not let all these lives be lost for nothing."
"I won't," replied Ziyi. "I pray we can meet again under much happier circumstances."
Wu smiled. "As do I."
"Come on." Robert took Ziyi's hand and led her back into the corridor, already filling with panicking people. They had to push against a tide of bodies on their way to the armoury, often jostled back two steps for every one forward. Ziyi didn't think they were going to make it through the press of bodies and was about to suggest abandoning their attempt to just go with the flow and get out of the City with everyone else, when Robert yanked her to one side, down a smaller tunnel.
More people loitered, filling the cramped space but they weren't frightened evacuees. Instead Ziyi was amongst eager militia, made up of men and women of every nationality, waiting to receive weapons. Some were veteran soldiers, calm and confident in their approach, others were appeared to be new recruits, nervous and scared. All were determined.
Ziyi and Robert drew plenty of attention as they made their way to the front of the queue but no one said a word of protest.
A Caucasian man, well over six foot with a thatch of blonde hair swept back into a warrior's knot and with animated tattoos crawling up the muscles of his arms, stood in the doorway. He nodded at Robert as he approached. "Don't normally see you down here, doctor. You come to fight?"
Robert laughed. "Sorry Nils. I'm definitely not a fighter. Got someone with me who is."
Nils did a double take when he saw Ziyi and then gave her a mock bow. "Heard you were with us, Princess. Normally I'd think this was even less your thing than it is the good doctor's, but by the look of you, you've already been in the wars plenty."
"No one wants to fight. But I find it best to be prepared," replied Ziyi.
The man nodded. "You got that right, Princess. Help yourself to whatever you need inside."
Before they could step into the armoury, the whole structure shook, quickly followed by a muffled boom of an explosion. Screams broke out amongst the evacuees in the main tunnel as a telephone rang in the weapons room.
Nils picked up the phone and listened to what could only be bad news. "Roger that. I'll get as many troops up there as quick as I can."
"What's happened?" asked Robert as Nils put down the phone.
"Police are trying to blow the main doors to the hall. They're holding for now but the guys aren't confident of them lasting much longer," replied Nils. He clapped his hands. "Come on, move it! Haul some arse. I need two squads to the Hall right now."
Assault rifles were slapped into waiting hands and troops dashed back out to face whatever came their way.
Ziyi concentrated on her own needs. There was nothing she could do to help the City's inhabitants except do her best to stay alive and foil Rui's plans. She slipped a Heckler and Koch P127 into a shoulder holster and four spare clips went into its pouches. She strapped a knife onto her wrist, sheathed another along the small of her back and slipped a third into her right boot. Once she had her jacket back on, all the weapons were nicely concealed.
Another explosion rocked the walls. Dirt and dust fell from the ceiling. "Better get out of here as quick as you can," said Nils. "See you on the other side."
Robert grasped his hand. "See you on the other side."
Nils was out the door before another word could be said. His troops followed in his wake. All eager to fight to protect what they believed in.
It took Ziyi and Robert another five minutes to reach the exit, an old sewerage tunnel, thankfully no longer in use despite the lingering smell, wide enough for five people to travel abreast. The sound of small arms fire echoed along the walls from behind them, punctuated only by the occasional explosion.
Fear lurked in everyone, young and old alike, illuminated by old florescent lights dotted along the ceiling. Parents reassured their children, encouraging them to keep moving, promising everything would be all right, neither believing the words being said. Men and women shambled along clutching what few possessions they could carry. Some openly cried while others tried to put a braver face on things.
Ziyi and Robert joined the procession, slipping between as many people as they could to get to the front of the line.
"I'm sorry to bring this to your people and your home," said Ziyi.
Robert glanced over at her, smiled. "Not the best idea I've ever had. But no regrets."
"Thank you."
A girl in front of them stumbled but Ziyi had her back on her feet before she was trampled underfoot. "How much further?"
"Maybe another half mile," replied Robert. "The tunnel comes up in the old fish market — near an old warehouse building. From there, we can easily get back to Central — or further if you prefer."
An explosion shook the walls. More dirt and dust fell from the ceiling as people all around them screamed. The lights swung back and forth, flickering under the strain but thankfully kept working as they settled once more.
"I have my duty," replied Ziyi.
"You're a good person. You don't have to do any of this, you know. You can just run away. Disappear. We'll help you."
Ziyi looked him in the eyes and could tell he meant every word. "That's not my destiny."
"Who knows what your destiny is, Ziyi? Just because you were put on a certain path when you were a child doesn't mean you haven't got a say in what happens to you now. You're at a crossroads. You can do whatever you want."
"Please believe me, I know. I've dreamed of escaping — of being my ow
n person — for most of my life, but to do so would deny my duty, and I couldn't live with that. Xiao needs me. The Empire needs me. Your own people need me. I'll not fail them."
Robert shook his head. "It's madness but that's why you'll probably succeed."
Ziyi almost laughed. After everything that had happened, she'd barely managed to stay alive. Success seemed so far away. "Your faith means a lot."
"You probably would've been better off with the squad of soldiers Madame Wu offered to send with you instead of just me."
"She needed every man if she's to have any hope of holding the City. She gave me your help — that is enough. Everything else, I must do alone. As I said, it is my destiny."
"I understand but that doesn't mean I like it."
The crowd ahead of them had slowed to a snail's pace as the size of the exit had created a bottle neck. Behind them, the sound of gunfire grew more intense, sending more ripples of fear through everyone.
While Ziyi and Robert waited their turn to climb out of the tunnel, she looked at the scared faces around her. It was hard not to suppress her guilt at bringing it all upon them. She had to remind herself it was Rui and the Americans who were actually responsible — and anyone else who was orchestrating it behind the scenes.
Another explosion shattered every thought in her mind. A shock wave washed over all of them. Somewhere a light blew up in a shower of sparks and glass, leaving half the tunnel in darkness. Everyone held their breath as they tried to listen to the silence over the ringing in their ears.
"They're in the tunnels."
Ziyi thought she'd misheard the cry at first, coming as it did from so far behind them, but there was no mistake as it was taken up all along the line. The packed tunnel surged forward, turning a press of bodies into a crush. Gunfire, no longer muffled, filled whatever space was left, quickly followed by the screams of the injured and dying.
"We've got to help them," said Ziyi as she drew a pistol and pushed against the oncoming sea of bodies. She might as well have pushed against a wall for all the good it did her, but she had to do something.