by C. W Tickner
The man went on. ‘Where you gunna go? We gots men waiting outside.’
‘He’ll kill us anyway,’ Seth said.
‘Not you,’ a sophisticated voice behind them said. ‘But this one might not be so fortunate.’
Harl spun to find a burly bald headed man had snuck up on them. He had a thick arm wrapped around Troy’s neck, holding him up and was pointing a pistol at his lolling head.
Chapter 28
Lights installed. I have begun sowing compatible mixtures of grass and a variety of trees. I have found an entry in the storage logs for a wind generator and it will be essential for pollination.
Guns whipped up as Damen and Dana spun to face the threat, but the man pushed the barrel hard to Troy’s head as a warning. Troy groaned and opened his eyes.
‘What the-’ He struggled in panic but the man tightened his grip around his throat, lifting
Troy up and choking off his protests as his feet scrapped the air, trying to find the floor.
‘Weaponry down,’ the man said, his imperious voice was calm and he showed no sign of discomfort at Troy’s thrashing.
Troy was turning pink and Dana stepped forward, rifle raised to head height.
The whirring of the lasers as they switched off was joined by a cascade of steps, announcing that the soldiers had gathered their courage and closed them off at the junction. Harl glanced back at the soldiers. There was nearly two dozen, all holding weapons and dressed in blood splattered white suits with chrome plating.
Troy was turning a pale shade of blue. Harl’s pistol clattered to the floor and he slowly unslung his sword and let it fall. Kane and Dana followed his lead but Damen looked unsure, as if suicide could be an option. The man holding Troy smiled, daring Damen to make his move.
Damen lowered his rifle to the ground. He pulled a pair of pistols from his belt and a cord of grenades, placing them beside the weapons before he pulled of his gauntlet, unclipped his sword and lay a selection of knives beside the heap. The man relaxed his grip and Troy began to regain his colour. Soldiers stepped between them and collected the fallen weapons. Kane tried to hold on to his backpack but a grizzled looking man who’d been talking to the cleaners on the radio shoved him down and grabbed the bag. Small bald patches were visible in his thin brown hair as he began to rummage through the leather pack.
‘Leave it, Grunch,’ the one holding Troy said.
The grizzled man jerked his head to one side in an involuntary tic and Harl was sure a small clump of hair flung out. ‘But, Four,’ he said, giving another twitch, ‘ he could have anything in there.’
Four unwrapped his muscular arm from Troy and let him crumple to the floor. ‘Bind their hands.’
Dana rushed forward to help Troy but Four reached out and wrapped a thick hand around her throat. Troy groaned and tried to swipe at Four’s leg. Four kick Troy aside and with his free hand he gripped the ring of knives around Dana’s thigh and tore it off. He turned her head from left to right, inspecting it and smiled. She spat in his face.
He tossed her aside and she slammed into the smooth metal wall. Instead of collapsing to the floor, she bounced back to her feet, breathing heavy and glaring at Four. He’d turned back the way he’d come and instead of attacking him, she moved to help Troy stand as the soldiers began shoving them forwards after the huge man.
As they navigated the maze of ventilation tunnels, Grunch waved a thin whip around like a boy cutting the heads off flowers and kept yelling at Seth and the cleaners about a job well done. Unlike the others, his armour was grimy with dirt and where the white material showed between the chrome plate it was torn and discoloured. At the collar of his armour was a small smattering of hairs that had fallen out..
‘Shame you’ll av to go back and clean the bigger mess you left behind,’ he said. ‘Who knows, maybe you’ll be picked for fightin’ and another bunch of ya can do the cleaning. If yer lucky.’
Seth and the others said nothing, just put their heads down and trudged between the soldiers. None of them met Harl’s eye when he glanced back.
Troy was awake and stumbling between the soldiers, propped up by Dana. He was a ghost of his former self, sweating through his sleeveless jacket and barely keeping focus on where they were going.
Dozens of men dressed in white suits and chrome plates soldiered along behind them, guns ready at their hips as if expecting them to run.
Damen and Dana were too busy glaring at Four’s broad back. He was encased in darker armour than the others and it was so tight that it seemed to have been moulded in sections to his body. Harl noticed a small metal device embedded in the bronze flesh of his neck that showed between the small plates on his back.
Kane kept glancing to one side of their escort at the man who held his back pack.
‘Grakka will be delighted to see you,’ Four said, taking a sharp turn in the pipeline. ‘Hasn’t stopped gloating over taking out that puny island. It gets wearisome having to listen to his constant drawl about killing the despicable-’
Damen roared and launched himself at Four’s back, barrelling him forwards into a roll. Four spun and was on his feet in a heartbeat, his bald head scraped from the fall.
Damen swung both tied hands at his head but Four simply ducked the blow and swept a leg out, knocking Damen off his feet.
The guards looked ready to fire but Four stared them down, shaking his head as Damen stood.
A semi circle had formed behind Harl and he felt the warning press of a gun in the small of his back.
Four grinned as Damen crouched ready to strike.
‘Grunch, severe his bonds.’
Grunch, jerked his neck to one side then let out a nasty chuckle. He stepped forward and sliced a knife between Damen’s wrists, cutting the rope with a sharp yank. They matched each other in height and bulk but Four’s confidence in cutting the bonds made Harl fear for Damen.
Damen didn’t hesitate and launched himself at Four.
Four raised his knee just as Damen crashed into him. Damen slipped aside before it could crush his ribs and powered a right hook at Four’s head.
Four twisted away and in a smooth motion, too fast to follow, he snapped out his left fist and forced his knuckles against Damen’s punch mid-swing. Damen’s fist cracked as bone met bone and their knuckles ground together. Damen shook with the impact.
Four swung his other hand up in a vicious arc. The blow struck Damen in the temple and Harl watched in horror as his friend was lifted sideways and tumbled against the wall to land unconscious on the floor.
Four bellowed with laughter. ‘Bind his hands and feet and have the cleaning crew pull him behind.
Harl watched Grunch fasten rope around Damens hands and feet then sprung back before he woke. When he did, it was to the muttered apologies of the Seth and the cleaners as they dragged him along.
Harl trudged down the tunnel in silence, wincing every time Damen banged his head as he was pulled feet first. He cursed the cleaners as cowards as he twisted to spread the damage.
How had four done it? He’d seen Damen in more fights than he could recall and no one had bested him with such ease.
He caught a flash of exposed flesh on Four’s neck and wondered about the embedded device. Had it helped him in some way or was it more sinister, like the sight enhancing goggles on the scout they had killed. A glance round at Kane told him the answer. The scientist seemed to guess his thoughts.
‘Muscle enhancements,’ he said. ‘Human experiments.’
‘Seal your vocal chords,’ Four said without looking round, ‘or I’ll tear them out.’
Even with the threat, Damen was still cursing Seth and the others. Dana joined him in glaring at them until they looked away. She steered Troy back on track with tied hands as he stumbled.
When they reached a door, Four kicked it open revealing a hover platform, parked beside the entrance, hovering above an Aylen room. The platform was clearly copied from the one they had used at the all world meeting. It had
two chairs facing front, encircled by a rail, leaving space behind the seats for cargo or standing passengers. A man in a bright orange robe was occupying one seat and seemed to be in the control position, awaiting orders.
Four swung open a door in the chest high rail and waited for the cleaning crew to drag Damen out the doorway and onto the flat section of the platform. Since they had stopped to wait for Four to kick the door down the men dragging Damen had lost momentum and with Damen struggling they were unable to shift him. Damen looked up from the floor and his face was covered in cuts and grazes. His beard had cushioned some of the worst but seemed to be shorter in places.
Four stomped over to him and with one hand, grabbed the bonds securing his wrists behind his back. He lifted him in one fluid motion and like a log, he bowled Damen onto the platform.
He turned back to them. ‘Step aboard,’ he said and gestured theatrically at the platform. As they stepped on, the circle rocked like an unbalanced boat. Two men carried their equipment on board and waited within the rails, guns pointed at the five of them.
Four looked around, ‘Grunch?’
The tatty leader stepped out from the press of soldiers. ‘Sir?’
‘Escort the men back the long way and I will accompany these puny intruders to the director.’
‘Yes boss.’ Grunch looked as if he’d expected to join them. ‘And the scum that discovered them?’
Four waved the question away as if such decisions were beneath him but Grunch waited as if in protest at not being able to join.
‘Dispatch them to the conflict.’
A couple of muted cheers came from the cleaning crew.
Four looked at the waiting Grunch as he twitched several times. ‘Leave my periphery.’
‘Eh?’
‘Get out of my sight!’ Four roared.
Grunch staggered back from the shout, then spun and began yelling orders at the soldiers as the platform jolted in to motion. It dropped down from the opening in the ceiling until the heads of Aylen came level with them as they strode back and forth in some sort of power control room.
Thick glowing cables trailed out of every wall. They looped down to the floor and up into one of hundreds of sockets around the room. The Aylen moved from one side of the room to the other, tugging the giant cables out and plugging them back into a free socket space. Aylen symbols scrolled across huge long screens as if directing the worker’s movements.
The platform swivelled to face a closed doorway and a series of jolting shunts wracked the circular flyer and they slowed to a stop.
The man in the orange suit punched symbols on the screen in front of him before they flickered to black. Grabbing the screen, his knuckles whitened as Four came to stand behind him.
‘Why are we stationary?’
‘P-power, sir’
‘Your fault!’ Four screamed, making them all jump as he turned bright red and clipped the man across the back of the head. ‘Fix it.’
The man slumped forward onto the blank screen as if taking a well deserved nap.
Four prodded the man and when he realised he was unconscious he whirled to face the five of them and pointed at Dana. ‘Repair it.’
Dana stared at him in bafflement and shrugged. He stepped forward and raised a hand. ‘I said-’
‘Your power line has disconnected,’ Kane said, moving to the console and diverting Four’s attention from Dana.
Dropping to his knees, Kane shimmied a panel off the side of the console’s support arm and tutted before wedging a hand up inside. ‘Stupid design,’ he said, squinting his eyes shut as his arm worked up in the console. ‘A blind armless man could do better at copying my designs. There.’ The screen flickered to life, beeping and humming as Kane extracted his arm, covered in grease and black fluid.
The unconscious man threw his head up from the console at the noises. Four turned from eyeing Kane and stomped over to the man in orange, who was furiously trying to look busy.
Four grabbed him by the back of the neck with one hand.
The man’s head sunk into his shoulders, cringing with fear. ‘Please no.’
Lifting him up from the seat, Four carried him to the side of the platform and as he kicked and struggled, Four tossed him casually over the side.
The scream was terrifying and they all heard the faint thunk as he hit the floor far below.
‘Pilot it through the door,’ Four said to Kane.
Kane slunk in to the seat and began tapping away on the screen.
‘Attempt any espionage,’ Four said, clamping a hand on Kane’s thin shoulders, ‘and you’ll join the last navigator.’
Kane swallowed and guided them through the door into a second room where a mech suited Aylen was descending from a huge square in the ceiling. A platform supported the titanic metal frame like an open elevator. The Aylen raised an arm, aiming its weapon at them as it spotted the platform. A red beam enveloped the platform.
Harl glanced over the side. Could he survive the drop when the Aylen fired.
‘Scanning us,’ Kane said and Harl let go of the railing as the red haze lifted.
‘Nosey security,’ Four muttered. ‘Back and forward, all they’re programmed to do.’ When he noticed them listening he frowned then turned on Kane. He pointed at the open sided elevator, ‘take us up that way.’
They headed directly up when they reached the elevator hole and rose up to the second floor. The vast room was windowed and brightly lit, giving a view of wispy clouds against a pale blue sky. A closed door was directly ahead of them and an archway on their right. Four pointed to the door and a small recessed square beside it in the wall with a glowing screen. ‘Stop in proximity to that.’
As they slowed to a stop beside it, the detail became clear. It was an Aylen access pad. Two access pads if you included the human one beside the giant Aylen keypad.
Four jumped over the front rail, startling Kane and landed on the keypad. Pressing down a button, he spoke. ‘Unit four reporting. I have acquired the trespassers.’
A buzz sounded and a smaller square slid open in the giant door.
Kane took them through the hole and Harl’s heart thundered as Damen began to roar a string of curses as he peered under the rail. A fat Aylen was lounging behind a desk. They had entered Grakka’s office.
Chapter 29
I thought I saw someone at the end of corridor 8-7C. When I reached the junction there was no one in sight. This loneliness could drive me insane if I’m not careful.
Grakka was sat behind a bright steel desk as they entered the office. He was dressed in his multicoloured suit, the weaving of lines across the black fabric drew the eye and was the brightest thing in the office.
The room was lined with shelves and display cabinets on two sides with a closed door to their right. An elaborate chrome mech suit was stood in one corner, like a waiting guard but with no Aylen inside.
Harl almost gagged when he saw the shelving behind it. What he thought were smaller objects on the shelves were humans. Placed like one might put a paper weight or a favourite stone. Grakka had lined up rows of still-life humans. It was like an action graveyard. The motionless forms had been taxidermied into position and laden with weapons and armour. Some were placed as if in mid kill, stabbing blades through weaker looking opponents as they roared a battle cry with their mouths wide open. The corpses would sometimes have little backgrounds around them or bloody grass beneath their feet as if in some sick diorama.
Four made Kane take the platform down to the desk and they stepped off with the two guards in tow.
There was a giant computer tablet and a scattering of paper on the table as well as a spherical charge that hovered above a pedestal, the swirls of colour inside were hypnotic.
Damen was untied and instead of looking up at the Aylen he ignored the stare and began to limber up as if to fight the director.
Grakka’s weathered face held a constant gloat, assured in his place. A smug grin revealed the rows of sharpened t
eeth that gave him the evil look Harl had come to know.
‘Welcome,’ he said in a gravelly voice that was translated through both the platform and in Harl’s earpiece. ‘My guards tell me you were sneaking around inside my building.’ He shook his head and frowned. ‘Spying is a grave offence. I didn’t expect it of Vax but I should have guessed that Veel would take action, she’s bold that one. Just like her sister, she can’t resist sticking her nose in where it does not belong.’ He leant back in his chair and the padded metal creaked underneath his vast bulk. It was like some grotesquely obese barman in too tight a leather vest. ‘Well no matter. With you in my custody, that cursed island in ruins and the reactor waiting to be turned on, I’ve already won.’
Damen growled and Harl spoke to cover the noise.
‘You lost it a long time ago, Grakka,’ he said. He felt less fear in front of the director than other Aylen. Perhaps it was because Grakka reminded him of the Eldermen from so long ago, desperately trying to keep face but rotting from the inside out. ‘When the rest of your species hears what you done-’
Grakka laughed. ‘No one will care when I deliver unlimited power to each faction and save the planet from the brink of destruction.’ He smiled, ‘I’ll be a hero and you’ll be forgotten.’
‘Veel will come for us,’ Harl said.
Grakka darkened, ‘No she won’t.’ He leant forward. ‘She can’t admit she sent you here to spy and sabotage. It would go against all she believes.’
‘She’ll go to the Overseer and you’ll be finished.’
Grakka burst out laughing. The deep boom rumbled in their stomachs. ‘Not if I threaten to destroy the reactor. All I have to do is tell each faction that they caused the destruction by sending you here and Veel will be cast down. If it’s possible to get any lower in society. Until then you’ll all make fine specimens. Except you.’
Harl wondered what the monster had planned for him.
‘Do what you want,’ he said, ‘I’m not afraid to die.’
Grakka slammed his fist down on the desk and they staggered until the vibrations stopped. ‘Always thinking it’s about you,’ he said. ‘You had your chance when I offered up your parents. Instead you consorted with the bankers and forced their hands.’ He leant even closer, the foul breath whistling over them as he hissed. ‘You thought I didn’t know about that little deception? You do not deserve anything Harl. His yellow eyes shifted from Harl as he jabbed a finger past him. ‘But you do.’