by Jack Lance
“I’m sorry, Lon. I am so sorry. It was a stupid mistake, all of it.” Bailey sighed wearily.
Lon bent over leaning against his old knees.
“I can’t do this anymore.” Lon groaned and coughed. “It never ends. We need to get out of this horrible world. I can’t bare to think of Dora dying here.”
“I’ll take you with me. You and Dora both.” Bailey said, still slumped over the coal and bricks.
Lon sniffed and rubbed his nose, then reached to Bailey and pulled him out onto the lane. They bent over beside each other panting. Behind them fat arms of smoke and red dust were still pouring out of the shattered church windows, and catching sight of it Lon wheezed pathetically.
When they had both recovered somewhat, Bailey grabbed his arm sleeve and pressed at him “We're leaving tonight. Come with us and live...”
Lon straightened up and unsurely said “Yes… Yes. We will be there.”
Bailey stood a moment looking into his eyes, then turned and walked down the lane. He made it half of the way to the church then paused and suddenly turned around. The old man stood looking back at him from the other end, then twisted and fell to the ground.
He heard the scratch of a footfall on wet gravel behind him, and then the words “Don’t move.”
Bailey recognized the voice as being that of Dr Chester Barron. He had the time for only one tear before an enormous arm locked around his neck and bent him over. It squeezed until Bailey lost consciousness, and was dropped onto the grey lane.
He felt the first sensation of consciousness as he was toppled forward into a freezing tank, and slammed into it hard on his side. He lay curled at an awkward angle on the cool steel for a moment as he swam back into full awareness.
Quickly he looked at his watch, checking that it was indeed still morning. It was late in the morning but still with enough time to pull it back.
“What? Barron!” Bailey yelled out as he sat up in a growing pool of slimy water.
He had been sealed inside a broad, steel cylinder, with a glass window at the front looking out on an abandoned, burnt out office. It didn’t take much guesswork to see that he had been taken north into the abandoned city center, and so now he was at the mercy of Old Gang.
He sat in the freezing water and watched as Barron came to the other side of the glass, while in the holes in the building behind him noisy seagulls filled the air, watching what was going on.
He smiled, as if quite pleased with what he’d done and said “You don’t deserve this. They’re going to freeze you in this stuff, and keep you as a live ornament… or something”
“Who are you whoring yourself out to this time then?” Bailey said standing up.
“It doesn’t matter.” Barron said sadly.
“Fucking bastard Old Gang.” Bailey said and spat down into the liquid.
“It doesn’t matter.” Barron said and turned and walked away.
“Barron!” Bailey yelled out while slamming his palm against the glass.
He slapped at the glass a few more times then leaned close to it and looked around at the floor outside. He couldn’t see anyone at first, just the ancient tattered ruins of an office floor blowing in the winds from the open wall. They were high up as he could see the block on the opposite side, which looked equally as desolated and remote as this.
Then someone walked around in front of the window. He was an ill bred looking man with protruding teeth and one inparticularly beady eye. He was holding a console in his hand that looked to be a wireless control for the mummifying device he was standing in. He giggled in a goofy way and waved slightly with a needle abused arm. Other weirdoes were joining him to watch whatever process was about to happen within the tank.
The water had already risen up to Bailey’s neck, when then he had a thought.
He reached into his pocket and brought the multi-com up to the gap of air. Bailey struggled in the lapping water, but managed to dial the number for Faye Scotia, and on picking up he said “Faye! I need you to bring an ambulance fast. I don’t know where I am. You need to trace this call. Can you do this?”
“I’ll try.” she said, sounding a little flustered. “Ok. It’s on its way.”
Bailey hung up and ducked under the water.
He struck the multi-com on the steel sill of the window until he had broken open the battery at the back. In the swirling liquid it was difficult, but he managed to feel around enough to loosen the right combination of nanowire bundles that he needed. He frayed and twisted a few together and then lay the com on the narrow window sill. He then kicked against the wall to get to the opposite corner as fast as possible. With his arms around his head and his knees crouched up for further shielding he waited, struggling against the last of his breath.
The com glowed red and then exploded, blasting the window out and knocking the man and his strange friends back across the office. The water poured out and washed them further along and then out of the gaping hole in the wall. Their cries lessened as they fell down, and then were gone.
Bailey, his body broken, and his limbs torn away, flowed out onto the filthy floor with the water.
His torso slid to a stop and he lay breathing in a daze, and wondering how much of himself was still in one piece. The pain was excruciating, but he managed a brief laugh.
“I’m alive.” he hissed, and then chuckled slightly before falling unconscious.
As he did he vaguely noticed the swirling blue lights of the robotic ambulance as it flew up to the hole in the wall.
Other troll-like minions of Old Gang cringed as they saw it and ran away, deeper into the building.
He awoke to the gentle peeps of a heart monitor. Bailey felt around his body, glad to see that he had been pieced back together. There was mild soreness around both of his upper arms, and his right foot, and so he guessed that those were the parts they’d had to reaffix. Bailey then looked around himself and found that he was lying in a bed in a familiar place. He looked over his shoulder through the high arched window, looking down from the South Syndicate building.
At first he hadn’t noticed, but Faye was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame.
She smiled as he noticed her.
“What the chuck are ya?” she said, and threw a new multi-com onto the bed.
Nice Problems To Have.
Wendall Jayne wasn’t really sure what to do. She didn't really fit in, and so had been sitting on a chair a little further back along the path from the rest.
She watched as Faye came the whole distance back along the path from the nature observatory, and walked past her with a slight nod of acknowledgement, before continuing on into the mix with the others.
She was surprised that even now she wasn’t really being used at all, and her extensive and brilliant experience of software hacking on all and every level was going to waste.
There was a butterfly she noticed now, dancing around with her in the tunnel. It was blue, her favourite colour, but she seemed far too stressed to appreciate it.
She glanced up through the opaque roof of ice at the tower and its spinning light, and wondered if maybe she’d be needed once they reached the top.
As she looked back she saw again that persistent butterfly, and began to smile.
It began to dance its dance back through the tunnel toward the moors and Jayne watched it, enjoying its purity and simplicity.
Looking back at the others through the open plastic screens she saw that none of them were about to pay her any attention yet, and so she stood up and walked along the path after the thing. It stopped at the mouth of the tunnel where it began to slope down alongside a cliff of ice to the damp edge of the moors.
Jayne followed the butterfly to the top of the damp ramp and stood watching it close up where it flew. It flew aside slightly and stopped on the ice within touching distance, batting its wings poetically.
She didn’t touch it, but leaned closer to watch as it fluttered slightly, then eerily, changed its sha
pe.
It turned to sand, or so it seemed, and she watched as the sand ate a small shape in the ice it had been resting on.
She blinked slightly and then noticed more sand blowing along the path by her feet, and more sand blowing with impossible balance along the metal arm rail of the ramp.
“So beautiful.” she heard a woman whisper, as she watched the sand begin to lift from the railings and encircle her slowly in the cold air. “This won’t hurt a bit.”
The dust grabbed her, and then the computer that had juvenilely called itself Netic had abducted another exile.
The surveillance grid saw only a streak of dark blonde hair before their recordings were encrypted or deleted from the drives.
Jayne felt no inertia as she was pulled at hundreds of miles per hour across the biosphere, down into city and then further down into the catacombs. It carried her deeper, through huge tunnels and caverns, by rivers of churning molten rock.
Jayne closed her eyes.
At the bridge by the tower there was only the empty path, while Randall and the others continued to work on their own tasks.
Bailey had gone another way, to a place he was grimly familiar with.
He was with Rhia NoVakahn who was in charge of the final stages of the opening of the door to the Red Sector psycho wing.
“It was Barron, no question. Working for Old Gang.” he said.
They had made the journey to the soot cavern that Bailey had crossed the first day he had escaped from the place.
They made it across each of the piles, and the sound of the off tone bell got louder as they drew closer to the place. It had apparently not been turned off in all the time he had spent in the city.
At last they made it atop the last of the piles of dirt and Bailey stopped and looked around at the features of the place.
“Damn, this is where I started out.” he said and followed Rhia down to the darkness below as the bell chimed another of its strange notes.
They walked across the concrete flat to the outer wall with the words “Red Sector: Psycho Wing” in huge lettering. The door was as he had remembered it, still closed firmly shut, with a tiny box at its side for biometric scanning.
“Ok, where are we? Only someone with the right DNA signature can open this baby.” Rhia said. “It would be best if we had someone that fitted the bill.”
“Alive?” Bailey asked, knowing the answer.
“Needs to be.” she said.
“Thought so. Farnon and I have an idea but it’s a risky biscuit.” Bailey smiled, then dialled up the number for Port Farnon. “Hey friend, are we good to go with our little idea? Bring him here, and don’t get followed.”
A half hour later of waiting and they saw Farnon and Thom walking precariously around the last of the piles of dirt. Thom was carrying a wheelchair, while Farnon carried Kane Minik. They walked across the flat to them and placed Kane carefully into the chair.
“I won’t help you.” Kane said with difficulty in his crippled condition.
His whole body seemed limp and stiff, and his neck rested back in a padded clip.
“You look terrible.” Bailey smirked as he sucked on a cigarette. “I’ll introduce you to Thom. Thom is Wendell’s boyfriend. Don’t be shy, Thom.”
“How do you know, Jayne?” Thom said to him, sounding slightly angry.
“It’s a long story, and to be honest it doesn’t matter.” Bailey said, ignoring the spluttering noises Kane was making.
“We need to connect him to the keypad, then depress the button to open.” Rhia said. “But leave it as long as possible. If we leave it open for too long it will get noticed.”
“Ok. I’ll leave this with you, Rhia.” Bailey said. “Thom you stay here in case anything strange happens. Dora Beldin is making her way here now. I made a promise to Lon I’d get her to safety. I think it’s the least we can do.”
They made tired, dismissive sounds of agreement, then Bailey said “Farnon, you come with me. We’ll need that plane in the air very soon.”
Bailey and Farnon then made the long journey to the central tower, and on arriving were greeted by Randall, Faye and the members of Thom’s gang. There were others here now also, that Bailey recognized to be friends of Randall and Faye.
Farnon walked past them all to his wispy wife Minuet who didn’t look at all comfortable in the company. He comforted her close, away from the others, and rubbed her impossibly thin arms as she began to smile a little through her low hanging black hair.
“Is it ok if we bring a couple more?” Faye asked.
Bailey sighed and said “I guess it won’t matter much now. Who are they?”
“My friend Willow Derwent.” Faye said. “And Flynn’s friend from the fight leagues.”
“Name’s Nicolae.” the huge man said with a doped grin. “Just Nicolae.”
“Ok. Fine.” Bailey said rubbing his head to quell the migraine. “How much longer now?”
“It’s ready.” Randall nodded. “But we’ve found something unusual on the spectrograph.”
“Oh?” Bailey said cocking his head, and walked with him to a holo-display near the door.
The others watched them from a distance as Randall pointed at the 3-dimensional negative of the lower floor of the tower.
“Here beyond the door we see what we expected to see. There’s a glass base in the center and a teleportation pad at the rear wall, fed by a power relay running up the wall to whatever is at the top. We can definitely hack this in the timeframe so that’s no trouble. The problem is just what you outlined in the little master plan on your wall… once this door is down it will trip every alarm on the planet. We will have to get up to the control room within minutes, or we’ll be screwed.”
“I already know all this, Randall.” Bailey said.
“We found something else. Look at the rear wall, behind the pad and the power lines.” Randall pointed into the holographic model, and Bailey leaned closer to see.
“A shaft?” he asked.
“It leads right up to the dome roof. It’s a part of the refrigeration system for the ice. In winter the tube freezes solid, pumping up the ice all around the tower. But it’s open at the roof. Someone could climb up there and may be able get into the control room faster that way.”
Bailey held his chin and said “Well, the original escape plan showed the antenna hut is surrounded by windows on all sides. Might be able to blast my way in?”
“The only way to the shaft is through the water, under the ice, then swim across to it. We drilled a hole to see how far down the water is.”
Randall walked with Bailey over to a narrow well, leading meters down to a small circle of water.
“It would be dangerous.” Randall said. “And there may not be any need.”
“But if you can’t hack the teleportation pad, then what? It’s all lost? I’ll go.” Bailey said, and took off his jacket and shirt.
The others looked on with worried faces.
“Are we starting now?” Faye said dumbly.
“It’s already started. We’re wasting time.” Bailey said. “Blast the door. Get in there.”
Randall nodded, looking worried himself, as Bailey walked to the edge of the well. The arm of the droid that had drilled it still dangled over it. He looked up at it and then down at the water, then cupped his hands together and toppled forward into the well.
The others rushed to look as Bailey plummeted down and then was enveloped by the cold blue water.
Bailey stretched out, trying to swim in the direction of the underside of the tower. The cold of the water had grasped every cell of his body, and now his chest had contracted threatening to squeeze the air back out of his lungs. His eyes adjusted to the water and the cold, and he began kicking and swiping into it. Slowly at first, he began to swim below the rippling ice, that he now saw was a kind of enclosed cave. He glided under the cement edge of the tower then the ice ended and the steel underside of the tower began. Bailey swam under it then felt the tug
of gravity pulling him upward. It cancelled out the downward pull and so he tipped upside down and dropped out of the water. Gently he landed on his feet, upside down beneath the tower.
Bailey looked around in the small air pocket, and jumped slightly to test the strange gravitational effect he had encountered.
The far side of the tower was still a distance away, and there was no time to loose.
At no time did Bailey hear anything from the rest of the team.
Randall and the others blew the massive steel slab of the door, which spun slightly then toppled forward onto the floor within with an enormous crash. They stepped through the smoke, over the now immovable slab, and Randall looked at the teleportation pad on the far side, and the red strips of warning lights that suddenly began without noise.
“No time to lose.” Randall said, and they all ran into the tower.
Above them the power relays and diodes whipped massive bolts of electricity between them. They trickled up the full length of the tower to the top, which was out of sight in the darkness.
The only light in the place now was from the flickering strings of electricity, and the technical warning lights, that ran down the length of the tower in a series of red bars, ending beside the teleporter.
The escape party ran over the first of the floor to the center of the tower, where the floor turned to glass and the air pocket and water could be seen below.
Randall stopped as he saw Bailey running just below him like a mirror image. Bailey stopped also and looked at him momentarily before running on.
Randall continued past the glass to the floor housing the teleporter, and pointed for Rhia to get to work. He joined her on his back, and they slid underneath the pad, and began prizing open the microcircuitary. They each took the scraps of paper that had been taken from Bailey’s wall, and began rewiring the pad.
“Come on. Come on.” Faye said, and then hugged her friend while stamping her feet slightly.
As the red warning lights reached the ground level they dazzled each of them, making it hard to concentrate.
Faye looked up, seeing a small porthole in the rear wall beside the lights. Through it she saw Bailey slowly pulling himself up the shaft.