Quake

by Andy Remic

‘Fuck you, fuck you!’ screamed Kade, face red with impotent fury.

  Calmly, Carter took control from Kade and colour flooded back into his vision. With it came pain, smashing up from the broken arm and the pressure in his throat and he looked up at Jam, at those evil slitted eyes. Tears streamed down his face.

  ‘You cry?’ Jam lessened the pressure a little and stooped, staring hard into Carter’s face. ‘You’ve changed, Carter. What happened then? It was as if you were a different person.’

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ choked Carter. ‘It was Kade. The fucker always claims he will get the job done, get the killing done ... but he fucked up this time, didn’t he? He has left us both to die ...’

  ‘Kade?’ whispered Jam, copper eyes hooded.

  Carter could hear the distant roar of engines - and something else, a distant growling like that of a—

  Quake.

  ‘Jam, you and me - we’ll both die,’ snarled Carter through blood and saliva, his tears hot against his cheeks. ‘Durell is betraying you even as he has you do his dirty work. I didn’t realise you had stooped so low, Jam, I didn’t realise your past and your friendships meant so little.’

  Jam’s head tilted. He removed the pressure from Carter’s throat and moved across the snow, to where the small silver box nestled against the stone flags.

  Carter watched him warily.

  Beneath him, the castle began to vibrate.

  ‘The quake’s coming,’ hissed Kade. ‘Run!’

  ‘Fuck off, pussy. I don’t need your advice.’

  Jam returned and dropped to a stoop beside Carter. He pushed the box out, held clumsily in his dark claws. His eyes were narrowed copper slits and Carter scowled in confusion.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Take it. Go. Save Natasha.’

  ‘What?’

  Jam stood, rearing to his full height. And then he roared, a terrifying sound that mingled with the cacophony of the approaching earthquake. It echoed around the bleak walls of the castle, filled with anger, hatred and pure frustration ...

  Carter scrambled to his feet, clutching the ornate box. He flicked it open, and within nestled the dark disc - the Avelach. The healing machine that he could use to bring Natasha back from the brink of death ...

  Jam dropped to a crouch, then stood once more. He was breathing deeply, panting, his stare fixed on Carter as he wrestled with inner demons.

  ‘Why, Jam?’

  ‘A present. From an old friend.’

  The castle started to groan, and the walls began to sway. Parts of the battlements suddenly fell away, dropping to the distant courtyard where they impacted and exploded, showering the courtyard with stone shrapnel.

  ‘Go, Carter. Go now.’

  ‘I need to know why.’

  Jam smiled then, and for just an instant Carter caught a glimpse of his old friend, a glint of the man who had been Jam - imprisoned within the shell of the ScorpNex.

  ‘We all have our internal battles,’ said Jam softly. ‘Yours is Kade. Mine is - a different kind.’

  Carter started to back away, towards the stairwell. The whole castle was shaking now as the quake took it and the mountains in its fist. Distant avalanches rocked the steep sides of the valleys, millions of tonnes of rock and ice and snow tumbling from high reaches and crushing the world beneath—

  ‘You know what Kade is? You know him?’ said Carter.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tell me!’

  But the world was descending into insanity ...

  ‘Go!’ screamed Jam.

  Carter turned to run, pain and panic driving him.

  ‘And Carter?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Tell Nicky I love her.’

  Carter nodded, and disappeared into the darkness of the winding stairwell. Through the falling snow Jam stared long and hard at the spot where Carter had been -and then turned towards the tower, the tower containing Durell and the QuakeHub and the core of all Jam’s misery, pain, confusion, frustration and loss.

  Evolution, he had said.

  An evolution of the body - but a regression of the mind.

  With a grim look, Jam stalked across the buckling stone flags of the battlements towards the dark confines of the tower and his mentor within.

  The quake was rumbling, smashing across the Austrian landscape, shaking the mountains in the fury of its clenched and threatening fists. On the slope leading to the castle stood Simmo, Mongrel, Rogowski, Mo, Haggis, Remic, Fegs, Oz, Kavanagh, Root Beer and Samasuwo. Bob Bob was rubbing at the custard stains on his combats and muttering about detergents; everybody else was staring at the SP57 tanks, their engines roaring as their guns pounded the occasional shell into the shuddering castle.

  The whine of abused engines howled through the sky. The gathered men cocked weapons in weary hands and turned to watch the Comanche settle into the snow-slush on the trail, its suspension bobbing.

  The Priest stepped out, sandals slopping in the snow and robes whipping madly in the down draught of the war machine’s rotors. He was followed by a woman, tall and slim and pale-skinned, with a long fan of brown hair worn loose across her shoulders and with piercing green eyes set in a pretty oval face. She was dressed all in black and carried a sub-machine gun. The Priest carried nothing except his Bible.

  ‘You here for the party?’ asked Mongrel, his face grey with exhaustion.

  ‘Bless you, my son. I am here for Carter ...’

  Mongrel stared darkly into The Priest’s eyes. And he remembered The Priest’s words back on Crete. ‘Don’t make me come looking for you, Carter. Don’t make me hunt you down - it would be a waste of a good man. One of the best we have. ‘

  With a sudden snarl Mongrel went for his M24 machine carbine, barrel lifting and finger squeezing the trigger. Simmo grabbed the gun, wrenching it skywards as a spray of bullets lifted on trajectories of fire.

  ‘Whoa, lad,’ snapped Simmo, easing the weapon away from Mongrel’s paws.

  Mongrel scowled at The Priest, who held his hands in the air, apart, a soft smile on his lips.

  ‘You misunderstand my intentions,’ said The Priest gently. Behind him, Roxi was pointing her Heckler & Koch MP5 at Mongrel. He glared at her, noting the determination and strength in her piercing green eyes.

  ‘You’ve come to kill Carter,’ snarled Mongrel, spraying spittle. ‘Yeah, lads, he’s come to kill Carter!’

  There was a rumbling of defiance and unrest.

  The Priest swallowed. He was facing a potential lynch squad. A mutiny. ‘No, no, lads, I am here to find out what the hell is going on! The Lord has guided me, and yes, I do need to find Carter. He has disobeyed orders. He has disobeyed Spiral.’

  ‘You try and kill Carter, and we fuck you bad,’ said Mongrel angrily.

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘In there.’ Mongrel pointed at the shaking castle. Walls were toppling even as they watched. The rest of the TankSquad operatives were shooting any stray Nex who made a run for it from the gates. ‘He beyond your wrath now, Priest. He beyond your fiery revenge ... you fucking bureaucrats, everything in black and white - there no middle ground, no compromise. Carter - he in there, he trying to save Natasha, yeah, but he trying to take down Durell, he trying to smash the QuakeHub. He trying to save the world, Priest... with or without Spiral’s permission; with or without divine fucking intervention. You, Priest - you need God. But Carter is alone, and he ask favour of no man. You understand?’

  The Priest scowled. ‘I am not here to murder the man,’ he rumbled.

  Mongrel grinned a shark-grin. ‘Not unless he not follow orders, yeah? Carter has own guidance, own morals. He will do what right. If you not see that, then you just as blind as every other fucking bureaucrat in the universe.’

  ‘He is confronting Durell?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The Priest took a deep breath. ‘Maybe he needs a helping hand, then? We are standing here talking whilst the whole world is crumbling around our ears! We’ve got to help him .
.. to stop Durell ... to stop the quakes ...’

  ‘What about your God sending thunderbolts from the heavens to save us?’ interjected Remic, his M24 held loosely in battle-scarred fingers. ‘You seem to be an expert in that field, Priest. Maybe you could ask for a bit of celestial help?’

  ‘God helps those who help themselves,’ said The Priest primly. ‘Now ... gentlemen? Shall we go to Mr Carter’s aid? Or wait for him to be served in slices on a cold meat platter?’

  Mongrel grabbed his weapon from Simmo’s battered hands and stalked towards his Comanche. ‘We’ll take my chopper,’ he said, squinting at The Priest. ‘And you can leave your fucking girlfriend behind.’

  ‘As you wish,’ said The Priest, fingering his rosary beads.

  ‘Simmo?’

  ‘Aye, lad?’

  ‘Fancy giving me a bit of a hand?’

  Simmo prodded the Sig P7 9mm into the small of The Priest’s back. ‘Don’t mind if I do,’ he snarled through a demonic mask of drying blood.

  ‘That will be unnecessary,’ soothed The Priest, his dark eyes hard, mouth a grim line, ‘My mission is not to kill Carter; my mission is to stop the destruction of the Earth.’

  ‘We’ll be the judge of that,’ said Simmo sombrely.

  The castle was crumbling.

  Jam squeezed his bulk through the corridors, up the steep steps and into the tower room where Durell stood, facing the rippling liquid screen. Images flickered through it like gun-bursts, flashes of destruction from across the globe; scenes of his Nex armies warring with soldiers of every nation ...

  ‘I don’t understand,’ screamed Durell suddenly, without turning. ‘Why has the quake come here? What the fuck did I do wrong? What the fuck is the QIV thinking of?’

  He reached down, grasped the black cube and yanked it free of its housing. But nothing changed - the castle still rocked, pitching violently ... and now there came the whistle and crump of shells from Spiral’s few remaining tanks. They exploded in the courtyard down below, adding to the cacophony of insane noise and the rocking, heaving insanity that had become the world.

  ‘Maybe the processor is betraying you,’ said Jam softly.

  Durell whirled. ‘Come on, we’ll take the helicopter on the roof. It does not matter - the quakes are in progress, the world’s armies are weakened, the Nex are strong! We cannot fail now, we must return to Egypt, from there we can—’

  ‘Maybe it is the LVA, returning to haunt you.’

  Durell stopped then and fixed his stare on the towering figure of Jam. He licked his lips with a small dark tongue. His eyes narrowed. ‘What is wrong with you?’

  ‘By making me Nex you promised me Heaven.’

  Durell nodded, smiling, moving as if to push past Jam—

  ‘But you delivered me into a waking Hell.’

  Jam’s claw lashed out, hammering against Durell and throwing him back across the narrow tower room. He struck the bench on which the dark screen rested and it toppled to the ground, smashing with a flare of obsidian fire. Black fluid poured over the stonework, eating into it like acid and burning with dark flames.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ said Durell calmly.

  ‘Give me the processor.’

  ‘Come and take it.’ Durell shrugged himself free of his robes and beneath them huge coils of distorted muscle tensed. Between the two men - the two Nex - the dark fire from the smashed screen flared up and danced violently, silently, a barrier forcing them apart, a wall through which neither could pass ...

  They waited patiently, slitted copper eyes staring at one another.

  ‘If we do not leave here, the quake will tear down this castle,’ said Durell as the flames started to die down. Holes appeared in the stone flags from the powerful black screen acid, expanding circular portals showing a distant drop to the hall below. ‘We will both die.’

  ‘Then we both die. Give me the processor.’

  Durell said nothing.

  The quake was ripping through the Austrian mountainside. Both Nex stumbled as the tower swayed, and more shells could be heard raining down. Outside the tower they heard the whine of helicopter rotors.

  Durell leapt suddenly at Jam and they smashed into one another—

  As the quake tore the castle apart.

  The tower collapsed and millions of tonnes of ancient stone fell. The castle buckled and heaved, was taken in the mouth of the quake and pulverised by mammoth jaws of rock and iron.

  Stone sprayed out from the huge crater into which the castle sank and was swallowed, was consumed - as if in some ritual slaughter, some titanic revenge.

  The mountains reclaiming their own.

  The Alps taking back what was rightfully theirs: quarried and stripped and hewn and now absorbed - once again - into nature.

  The roaring of the quake’s gradual settling lasted for hours, slowly rumbling to a halt and returning peace and tranquillity to this quiet corner of Austria. It left behind a heavy cloud of stone dust, as well as torn earth, swallowed rock and a crater of war in the landscape. Gradually, the stone dust settled.

  The castle had gone.

  Nothing moved in the stillness.

  The snow continued to fall ... and soon covered everything in a blanket of virgin white.

  Carter stood next to Mongrel on the mountainside. Below, in the valley, the tanks were retreating.

  ‘They died together,’ said Mongrel softly. ‘We saw them both go down.’

  Carter nodded. ‘Swallowed by the quake that they created.’

  ‘Spiral will send PopBots to scan for traces ... when things finally return to normal.’

  ‘What’s happening with the Nex?’

  ‘There’s been wholesale slaughter worldwide. Human casualties numbering many hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, I imagine - both civilian and military. Who can foresee the damage of the quake? Not me! But the soldiers of the world are beating the Nex back ... and without the QIV’s influence world military systems are slowly coming back on-line. According to ECube reports coming in every few seconds from different sources - tanks and fighters, satellite comms and weapons systems - the whole fucking WarGrid is self-repairing. Once everything’s up and running we’ll wipe those fucking Nex out once and for all.’

  Carter nodded, his face grey with exhaustion and pain; haunted.

  ‘I’ve learned one thing from all this,’ Mongrel went on.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You do not fuck with Nature.’ Mongrel reached over, placed his hand on Carter’s shoulder. ‘You OK, mate?’

  Carter stared at Mongrel with war-torn eyes, filled with the horror of a thousand battles he never wished to relive. He took a deep breath of crisp cold mountain air, and with shaking blood-crusted fingers lit a cigarette thoughtfully provided by Mongrel. His broken arm was in a tight sling, and he clasped the silver box containing the Avelach to his chest as if it might bring him strength.

  ‘Yeah, I’ll fucking live. But we need to move, and we need to move now. Are you on for sharing a flight back to London? To Natasha and Nicky?’

  ‘Be my fucking pleasure, mate,’ said Mongrel, nodding.

  They climbed into the Comanche and, as the sun was setting behind the mountains and withdrawing its light from a snowy landscape of incredible white clean beauty, the machine leapt into the air. With engines thrumming, it slewed sideways through the valley and was joined by a second Comanche piloted by Heneghan and containing The Priest, Roxi and Simmo. The two machines turned smoothly and suddenly accelerated, rotors thumping over the Austrian snow.

  CHAPTER 20

  NATASHA

  The two Comanche war machines powered across Europe. Carter squatted in the back of one helicopter, face drawn, pain enfolding his awareness as he clutched the silver box to his chest and gazed out over the sprawling chaos below.

  Occasionally the world would shake, accompanied by sounds of thunder. Carter stared out with bleak eyes, his soul calm for the moment and at least thankful that Durell ha
d been halted in his quest for control... but in the same heartbeat he felt terrified at the state in which he might find Natasha when he finally arrived back in London.

  It had been a long, hard flight.

  And it was far from over.

  As they flew, Mongrel ensconced in the HIDSS helmet and the bullet-riddled Comanche juddering around them, rapid-fire messages and comms flashed through on the ECubes - rattling with intel from the Spiral mainframes at a colossal rate.

  According to the messages received, the earthquakes were gradually subsiding. Spiral HQs were collating data from agencies, Spiral operatives and governments on a global scale - sorting information and sending it out to their teams. Somehow, the QIV had infiltrated many of Spiral’s comms networks, including many of the ECube’s functions - distorting information and corrupting the Spiral databases. Spiral were relaying messages through the temporary AnComm Posts, analogue transmitters and receivers that acted as ECube data bridges and had at least managed to slow the QIV’s digital assault.

  Carter toyed with his ECube, idly watching flashes of information. The world was in the process of getting its shit together after this act of global terrorism under the stomping boots of the earthquakes - finally. Whole armies were on the move, fighter jets were securing and patrolling airspace, navies were steaming ahead, submarines patrolling cold deep waters.

  Carter shook his head in disbelief.

  He remembered casting the schematics for the QIII military processor into the dark sea, and being thankful that the processor was better off dead. Instead, unbeknown to him, the QIII’s successor had been almost complete, almost operational and destroying the QIII had been merely a stalling tactic on his part.

  Carter gazed down at the silver box against his chest, running his battered fingers over the finely carved dull silver surface. His fingers fumbled for a moment, and with a tiny click the box opened. He stared down at the simple black disc. His finger moved forward to touch it... and he paused.

  Something seemed to whine within him, as if some sixth sense was warning him of the dangers of playing with this awesome and terribly powerful machine. The Avelach. Carter frowned, and placed his finger against the surface—