The Sentient Corruption (The Sentient Trilogy Book 3)

by Ian Williams

Captain Rigs had a sudden hesitance to his actions; his mistrust was getting in the way of progress. He stood straight for a few moments, which he took to think deeply, before again leaning on the back of the chair in front of him. In the end he appeared to have weighed up the risk and deemed it worth a try. “We landed in the financial district, in one of the office buildings. We’re holding a position in the lobby.”

  The woman on the other end gave a pfft sound in response. “You guys have no idea, do you? You’re not ‘holding’ that position, you’re trapped there. We saw your light show from here, which means they will have too.”

  “We’re prepared to face the enemy when the time comes.” Captain Rigs lowered his mouth to speak to Watts in a hushed tone. “Can you locate them?”

  Watts shook his head. “I’m not even sure how we’re talking to them. It’s like the tablet found them by itself.”

  “You should come to us,” Captain Rigs continued to say through the radio. “We can protect you all here. We’re heavily armed and well stocked with ammo.”

  A dismissive snort returned through the speakers. The person on the other end was finding the Captain’s confidence quite humorous. “We’re safer here thanks. We’ve been in hiding since this all started, so I think we know best.” She was drawn away from the mic for a short while after her last comment.

  Another with her had other ideas.

  “They can’t stay there, they’ll be massacred,” a raspy sounding man said in the background. “We should help them get to safety. If the others were here they’d agree with me.”

  “But they aren’t here, are they? They’re off on another suicide run to disable the next relay? They left us in charge while they were gone, so we decide.” The woman became louder as she spoke directly into the mic. “Look, if you’ve got any sense at all, then you’ll get the heck out of that building right now. It’s not safe.”

  Captain Rigs answered straight away. “We’re holding this position.”

  “Fine, well if you won’t listen to reason then at least listen to this. When you realise your mistake come find us, if you can. Do you have a map on you?”

  Watts brought up a floating holographic map from his tablet computer as they went ahead and gave their coordinates. Graham could see the location from his position nearby. It appeared to be at one of the few places he could see someone surviving through the worst of the fighting; it was a processing warehouse where the farming towers’ produce would be delivered by the underground tunnel network. That made them right in his eyes. They were indeed much safer.

  “We have the location now, thank you. We’ll get to you as soon as we can.”

  “Unbelievable,” the woman said, again with her face turned away from the mic. She returned to say one last thing. “Stay off the radio from now on.”

  * * *

  An hour passed by without much of a change to their situation. Graham could still hear the crashing about in the upper floors as the aerial drones continued their search. He had wondered why they had not simply followed them straight to the bottom floors. It seemed to him the most obvious thing to do.

  That they had chosen not to do that made him nervous.

  His companions were now fairly settled in their barricaded area. They thought at least, that they had the place locked down. Of course nothing had arrived to prove them wrong just yet. That test was to come at some point. Unfortunately for Graham, he could see no way of getting them to leave this place. He also saw no achievable way of getting to a Conduit. Until something changed, he would be stuck there and with no hopes of starting his own mission.

  Gregson returned from yet another short patrol of the outside of the coffee shop. There was barely the room to run in there, so each patrol only lasted a few minutes before starting again. Graham had watched her wander around the lifts a couple of times and then swing by the blocked escalators to finish up. So far the night had not turned against them.

  “Gregson, report,” Captain Rigs called to her from his table. After the short chat they had shared with the strangers within the city, he had become preoccupied with the radio system. Watts could still not break through the interference to find the second team, which irked him greatly. Again, Graham knew why; his double was the only one with the way to do it.

  That reminded Graham, he needed to ask his friend exactly how he was able to do that.

  “All clear, sir,” Gregson responded. She followed with a stutter as a question she wanted to ask bubbled up. At the last moment she held it back.

  “Spit it out, Gregson.”

  “It’s just that…well, sir. What exactly are we doing here? If we can’t find Team Two and can’t communicate with the Ring, then what’s left? I was just thinking about our mission.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, after setting up base we were to go ahead with finding and destroying the nearest relay. We could still do that, sir. I mean, we have the explosives and Mr. Denehey too.”

  “We do indeed, soldier. But we have less than half of the number of feet on the ground that we intended too. There’s only six of us, out of the ten that left the Ring. And that’s not even including teams Three and Four, who are still up there, along with the rest of the soldiers that were to follow.” Captain Rigs sent an expectant look to Graham, who slid down in his seat a little in reply. “Mr. Denehey, perhaps you could tell us how you plan to help, seeing as you are now our back-up plan?”

  “Erm, do what?” Graham said, his eyes burying themselves into the wood of the table before him.

  “The only reason you’re here is because the Brigadier was under the impression you could hack the network. If we could bring some of the relays down, we could still make a difference here.”

  “Oh, that. Right, well. The only problem is we need to be at one of them, and I don’t think that’s a very clever thing to do right now.”

  “But if we got you to one, you’d be able to do something? You said you used to be a Simova technician.”

  Graham wriggled on the spot as he begged the voice in his head to return again. All along he had lied to keep himself in the right place, at the right time. Luckily he only needed to do this until his doppelgänger spoke up, something he was hoping would happen once more.

  “Mr. Denehey?” Captain Rigs stood and approached.

  “It’s a little complicated to explain. But yes, I should be able to do something.”

  “Should? That’s not quite as certain as we were led to believe. I’m starting to wonder whether you really need to be here or not. Or is there something else going on?”

  No answer lay within Graham’s reach, leaving him staring back instead. He could see something building behind Captain Riggs’ eyes, what he assumed to be a growing anger toward him. He was now stepping further into the corner he had already been backed, and his only way out looked about ready to snap shut.

  “You tell them the truth and they’ll probably string you up, G.”

  Graham was relieved to hear his clone speaking to him again. For a short while he worried it had left him behind, after having made its impatience known on a few occasions already. I have to tell them, it’s the only way to make them leave here and find somewhere safer, he thought.

  “If you have to then wait until the time is right. They’ll learn the truth of their situation soon enough. In fact, I think it's about to happen.”

  Captain Rigs appeared to have given up on getting an answer from Graham and slowly went back to his own thoughts. Their exchange had left a sourness to the air between them though, one Graham knew would remain until he came clean about his true purpose for being there.

  A sudden cease to the noises from the upper floors of the building soon stole their attention away from the question of Graham’s intentions. The drones could soon be seen swooping down over the nearby rooftops and away into the distance. Had they given up trying to locate the intruders?

  “Davis, what’s going on out there?” Captain Rigs asked.

  The ot
her soldier had remained near to the window while the rest stayed close to the centre. His watchful eyes kept close attention to what went on outside the building. “The drones are leaving, sir,” he replied.

  “Finally. Right, I need you to head up to the roof of the building and look for Team Two in the area. From up there you should have a clear enough view to find them nearby with your binoculars. The rest of you will hold this position, while myself and Mr. Denehey here have a little chat in private.”

  The idea of going anywhere with the Captain made Graham instantly grip the bottom of his seat. He knew exactly what their ‘chat’ would involve; after a few heated words it would turn to threats, even violence, to get the truth. He remained in his seat as the table was pulled away. Suddenly feeling exposed and on show for all of the suspicious eyes to study, he had little choice but to join Captain Rigs as he led the way to a dark corner of the lobby.

  Feel free to step in whenever you want, Graham told his other self.

  They were both stopped in their tracks when a barely audible alarm started to call out from Watts’ tablet. Graham was relieved at first. Then he remembered what the alarm was for; something had been spotted by the cameras.

  “Talk to me?” Captain Rigs said, his head raised to see over Graham’s shoulder – who had not thought to step aside.

  “There’s movement outside the building, sir.” Watts held his tablet in his hands and swung it around himself. With the position of the cameras covering roughly the whole 360 degrees surrounding them, he could aim his tablet in any direction and see the camera feeds as a virtual overlay. For a short while he appeared unable to decipher the alarms exact message. After a few more frantic searches he eventually spotted the direction the movement had come from.

  “How many?”

  “I can’t tell, sir. I’m not seeing much in the darkness. Let me switch to infra-red.”

  Still following like a loyal pet, Graham took a position beside Captain Rigs and watched Watts’ tablet screen turn to one of predominantly purple shades of colour. But where before it had been just a bare view of the small seated area and street outside, it now contained many details of interest. Most immediate of which was a line of red and orange that was heading toward them from the opposite building.

  “Is that?” was all Graham could say as he watched the line draw slowly closer.

  Captain Rigs ignored the question completely. “Dammit. Everyone get ready. We have possible targets incoming. Choose a position and stick to it, no changing your mind at the last minute. Remember, we’ve set charges on the front doors so keep your heads down.”

  As if kicked up a gear, each soldier leapt into action and ran for the front barricade. They carried their equipment to a place of their choosing and threw it down to the floor, as though claiming the spot for themselves.

  The barricade, though only made up of chairs and tables from the coffee shop, appeared almost unbreakable. Beside the escalators ran a solid concrete wall at roughly waist height, which provided the perfect shield for those now peeking over the top of it. From there Graham’s small group had the advantage over anyone below.

  “They’re getting close, sir,” Watts said with his tablet still raised and pointing toward the front entrance of the building. He had now left his table and was standing a few feet away from the other soldiers, all readying their weapons to fire when needed. The barricade had been joined by a line of weaponry, the likes of which were sure to rip apart anyone caught in their sights.

  “Everyone hold your fire unless they’re inside. The charges should scare them off.” Captain Rigs knelt down behind the concrete wall. He cocked his weapon with a short and sharp yank, then checked down the sight. The glass entrances at the bottom of the escalators soon became his only concern.

  Watts spun his tablet around to see the full extent of the enemy’s forces. His reaction told them all it was bigger than they were hoping for. “Sir, they’re surrounding the entire front of the building. Facial recognition counts more than a hundred people, all armed…Wait a minute. They’ve stopped.”

  “What are they doing?” Gregson asked, her eyes glaring down the sight of her weapon.

  Captain Rigs quickly interrupted. “Just be ready. They know we’re in here, they won’t risk storming us.”

  Graham knew the opposite was really the truth, that these people were hardly concerned with losing soldiers. He could see the only outcome would be the very selfless sacrifice of possibly all of those outside. If it was Isaac’s desire to have them all rush the building and die in order to kill Graham’s small group, then that would be what they did. “Captain Rigs?” he said, before patting the Captain on the shoulder when he did not answer.

  “Not now.”

  “You have to listen to me. They don’t care how many they might lose here. They’ve got many more where they came from. This is a pointless fight.”

  Dropping his rifle to his side and turning to face Graham, Captain Rigs finally decided to engage in the conversation. “What are you saying?”

  “We should find a way to escape and meet up with the resistance. All we’ll achieve here is to fail before we’ve had a chance to help.”

  “Brigadier Harrington told me about your crazy thoughts on the enemy.”

  “They’re not crazy thoughts, Captain, they’re the truth. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. You have no idea what you’re really dealing with here, no-one on the Ring does either. These aren’t normal people anymore.”

  “Just stay quiet while we deal with this.”

  Graham raised his voice in return. “Listen to me.”

  The reply came with an equal amount of surprise to those listening in nearby. “Shut your fucking mouth, right now. Do you know how nuts you sound? I should never have agreed to bring you here.”

  A voice spoke through Watts’ tablet computer as an uncomfortable silence fell upon the group. Each soldier stared at Graham with a deep and obvious sense of paranoia over his insistence to tell them his tale. They now saw him as nothing more than a crazy person, with a story straight out of his own imagination. Because of this, only Graham could see what was really going to happen next.

  “Captain Rigs, come in, this is Team Two, over.” The man on the other end of the line spoke slowly and without inflection.

  “Thank Christ, they made it after all. Watts,” Captain Rigs said, “get their location. Tell them we’ll need them to help pick off these pricks surrounding us.”

  Watts began to repeat the message but was cut off shortly afterwards. The person at the other end appeared uninterested in listening.

  “You will not win this fight, Captain,” the man said.

  “What the hell is he talking about?” Captain Rigs ushered Watts over to join him and immediately snatched the tablet out of his hands. “Ellis, is that you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Again Graham noted how lacking in any emotion Ellis’ voice was. It contained nothing he expected a person trapped behind enemy lines would have. There was no lowering of his voice to avoid detection, no spikes in pitch as the adrenaline peaked, not even any degree of wavering.

  “How many of you made it to the ground safely?”

  “I am the only one, sir.”

  Captain Rigs rested his elbow on his knee and his head against his fist. The anger at how badly they had been hit made a clear impression on his body, which tensed and flexed at the same time. “Can you see the crowd around our building?”

  “Sir,” Watts reached for the tablet and turned it to aim directly at the front entrance of the building. It showed something none of them were ready for; Ellis was at the front door.

  “He’s not himself anymore, Captain,” Graham managed to say.

  Ellis continued, “You must all exit the building. You cannot hope to defeat us.”

  “Why is he talking like that?” Gregson ducked down below the concrete wall to say. “Have they done something to him?”

  Graham answered. “I’ve been trying to
tell you. What you see out there is not Ellis, it’s one of them.”

  When Ellis spoke again his words shook the soldiers into immediate action. “I am entering the building,” he said.

  “No, Ellis, stay outside,” Captain Rigs replied.

  “He’s not listening, sir.” Gregson went to stand and shout through the lobby just as the door opened. “The charges. God dammit, Ellis, stop!”

  “I must enter the building–”

  Everyone leapt to the ground as the door clicked open and pushed through the tripwire strewn across it. Although only a few bricks of C4, the explosion still contained enough force to engulf the whole front face of the lobby in flames and rattle the foundations of the building. The windows shattered throughout the ground floor, sending sharp pieces of debris shooting at their small group and sticking into the concrete wall protecting them.

  Graham slapped his head to the cold ground and covered his ears as the sound of Ellis’ body flying apart and hitting each wall of the lobby burst past. The heat of the blast rushed by too, which ruffled his jumpsuit and left a disturbing warmth to it. What followed next was the noise of tiny pieces of debris landing on the floor like that of rain upon a metal roof. It continued for a while after the explosion had faded and the ball of flames had gone out.

  “Fuck!” Captain Rigs called out before raising himself up to see over the wall. “Son-of-a-bitch, just walked straight through it. He didn’t even care.”

  By the time Graham had found his balance enough to join Captain Rigs by the wall the scene had again changed beyond recognition. The first thing he saw was the gaping hole in the front section of the lobby and then the missing glass of the large windows, which now covered the ground like a layer of glitter in the moonlight. Ellis’ body had been almost entirely destroyed and was nothing more than broken pieces about the place. But there was no blood, all of it had been vaporised in the explosion.

  With the separation of inside and outside having been permanently removed, their hiding place was now open to the elements. The night had turned wet with a light sheet of rain descending upon the line of suddenly very visible people standing there. Seeing them all staring blindly ahead brought Graham to an immediate halt. He dare not move from the spot in case one of them saw him.