by T. C. Edge
Some of them were command posts and staging areas for military action. Others were more peaceful, existing in the so-called ‘neutral zones’ at the centre of North America. These lands were under a muddled jurisdiction, considering themselves neutral and thus off-limits to any military action. Still, regardless of that fact they remained largely underpopulated, the people hardly trusting that one government or another might not stake a claim and march their military in.
Such was the current state of tension, that anything was possible. And like with LA and New York, the two other capitals of the nations to the north and south were equally tucked up away at the edges of the continent where they were considered to be more safe. In the Mid-States of America, that was Chicago. In the Southern Republic, it was Houston.
It was becoming more evident over the years that these four cities were the nations themselves. They were the heartbeat, the driving force, the cities expanding and becoming almost nation-states all to themselves, as the wars raged in the lands between them.
Right now, as Ragan sat in a small queue at a checkpoint heading into the eastern hills, he knew just what lay beyond. Military action remained in full thrust in various battlegrounds, and every day a new town was falling in the struggle. His time spent in LA was enough to really open his eyes in that regard, the city so sprawling now, gathering so many refugees from other towns and settlements under its rule.
But out there, the world was wild and dangerous. He’d seen much of it himself. He’d fought across much of it himself…
He turned his mind from his many battles, from the missions he’d undertaken with the Panther Force and CID, and to his current task. Ahead, about a half dozen cars were waiting in a line, ready to pass through the checkpoint. Ragan watched carefully, inspecting the actions of the WSA soldiers as each car came their way. They appeared to be checking I.D. cards only, scanning them onto the system before letting the vehicles pass.
Good, he thought to himself. This shouldn’t be too hard.
In preparation, he’d now taken off his suit jacket, leaving him in a white shirt. He rolled the sleeves up, revealing his muscular forearms, and set about ruffling up his hair. He adopted a glum expression too, loosening the muscles around his mouth, slackening his jaw.
The aim was simple - to make himself look more congruous with the car he was driving. If he were to pass by in his sharp suit, slick hair, and with a bright, smart expression on his face, the soldiers might just think something was up.
The car, after all, was a piece of trash. He needed to look like one too.
Several more cars moved through the checkpoint, Ragan creeping ever closer. He drew his identity card out and set it onto the seat beside him. Chloe’s bag, discarded from her back, was there. He shoved it into the footwell and out of sight.
Examining the contingent of guards ahead, he noted their formation, numbers, and arms. There was one checking the cars at the driver’s window, scanning the owner’s cards. Another sat in a small security hut to the side of the road, reading whatever information was flagged up, fortunate enough to be out of the pouring rain, which was still refusing to relent.
Another four were at either sides of the barrier ahead, two of them on each side, raising it and letting the vehicles pass through once they’d been checked. Those four had automatic weapons, the regular M402 rifles favoured by the peacekeepers and soldiers operating within LA. They looked rather fed up to be stuck outside beneath the incessant downpour.
All in all, it was a standard security set up, one of hundreds across the city. Ragan had managed to bypass several already as he’d worked up into the highlands to the east, but couldn’t do the same here. It was the final barrier before he’d be able to be free of this sprawling urban mess.
As the final car ahead of it was waved through, he rolled forward and stopped again as the barrier came down, blocking him off. The soldier came forward and tapped on his window. Ragan winded it down as the slashing rain grew louder, splashing off the soldier’s military raincoat and spitting inside.
The man took a disdainful look at the car’s interior.
“Nice car,” he huffed. “How does she drive?” His eyes went to the gearstick, a rare sight these days.
“Bit stiff,” grumbled Ragan. “But gets me from A to B.”
“Right. So, A’s back there,” said the guard, glancing to the twinkling lights of LA, hidden amid the thick rain and fog. “Where’s B?”
“Just off eastwards, visiting some family,” grunted Ragan. “Be back in the city tomorrow.”
The soldier reached out his hand as Ragan spoke, swiftly losing interest.
“Identity card,” he ordered.
Ragan reached to the passenger seat and handed it over. The guard took it and quickly placed it against a small scanning device in his hand. Ragan waited patiently as the information was fed to the security hut to the left.
The soldier then wandered to the hut, joining his colleague and stepping out of the rain. Ragan watched as the two men examined the information before them. They shared a few words, and the soldier returned to the deluge, moving back to the open window of Ragan’s stolen car.
“So, Mr Smith,” he said, using the false surname on Ragan’s I.D, “is this your car?”
Ragan’s chest clenched tight. Down by his side, his hand reached secretly to his pistol, hidden beside his leg.
Has the car been reported stolen already? Are they onto me?
“Um, yes,” started Ragan, swiftly configuring an excuse. If he could, he’d rather not have to kill this man, or the others.
Before he could continue, however, the soldier cut him off.
“It’s just…a little rundown for a man like you,” he said. “Don’t you insurance agents earn a packet? Run into hard times, have you?”
Ragan could hear the tone of suppressed joy in the man’s words, a sign of his bitterness. It was common for military men to dislike those who worked in finance and business, those who had some money. As the soldiers tended to see it, they were fighting, and dying, to keep the rest of the population safe. And they were hardly paid well for their trouble.
“Well,” began Ragan, quickly working out a way to steer to safety, and perhaps even gain the man’s sympathy, “yeah, I kinda have. It’s…my wife. Or…ex wife,” he said glumly. “She took it all in the divorce. I’ve barely got anything left.”
The story fitted well. He looked the part, certainly, grim and depressed. He sounded it too by the way he was speaking. Ragan was used to lying to people, playing an act. This was a walk in the park.
He hung his head, as if the pain was being drawn back to the surface, staring at his hands as they gripped the wheel.
“Right, well hopefully your family can cheer you up,” said the soldier. He reached in through the window and took a firm grip of Ragan’s shoulder, drawing up his eyes. “We’ve all been there, son. It’ll get better soon.”
Ragan kept up the act, setting his lower lip into a little quiver and blinking hard a few times. He’d really hit the jackpot with this guy.
“Off you go then, Mr Smith,” went on the soldier. “And keep your chin up. I’ll tell you a secret…she’s not worth it. Trust me.”
With a knowing look, the guard stood back from the car, and Ragan pressed down on the button to wind up the window. It juddered a bit as it rose, struggling to ascend, and a further look of sympathy fell over the guard’s eyes.
The ‘down on your luck’ story of heartbreak was always a good one, thought Ragan.
Ahead, the soldiers were being ordered to lift the barrier, the long stretch of road ahead tantalisingly close. Ragan’s foot hovered onto the accelerator, and his hand reached for the gearstick, ready to move off.
Then, suddenly, the soldiers stopped. The barrier stuck fast, only halfway up, too low for the car to drive under. The guard who’d scanned the I.D. turned, along with the others, to the rear of Ragan’s vehicle.
Over the rain, and the grinding gears of th
e barrier, a different sound was spreading.
Banging.
A constant and ever-increasing sound of thudding that was emanating from the trunk.
Ragan shook his head and clenched his jaw.
Damnit, Chloe, you weren’t supposed to wake up yet!
Chloe’s eyes inched open to find a state of pitch dark ahead. The sound of heavy rain, battering against a metal surface only a foot or two away, spread quickly into her ears, growing from muted to clear in a matter of seconds as her nanites brought her back to full consciousness.
A slight haze of grogginess remained, still to be fully cleaned up, and a memory flourished immediately - Ragan, shooting her in the left thigh. That agent of the CID, knocking her unconscious.
Immediately, she tried to sit up, but banged her head against the surface above. She tried to stretch her legs, but found them blocked off, her posture curled and unable to move much more than a few inches in each direction.
Her first thought was a horrible one - he’s buried me alive!
Then, her logic took hold and she realised that wasn’t his goal. And the rain, pattering against a metal surface above, made it clear she wasn’t six feet under.
Lying on her left side, she reached forward with her right hand, squeezing it towards her eye. She tapped the surface, hoping she was still wearing her multifunction contact lenses. To her relief, the double tap brought about an immediate change in her vision, the night-vision setting on her right lens immediately activating.
It took only a split second for her to realise where she was.
I’m in the trunk of that damn car!
A smell of stale, rusty air wafted up her nose, and she looked upon the filth around her. The trunk was lined with an old, stained carpet, bits of rotten trash squashed up against the side. She coughed, gasping as she drew in the putrid air, and immediately rolled onto her back, releasing her left arm, and began banging the metal roof of the trunk with all she had.
She didn’t have much space to work with, not enough to get much traction, but thrashed away nonetheless. The car felt like it wasn’t in motion, perhaps parked somewhere. If she could smash her way out, she might just be able to escape.
As she began her banging, however, a few muffled voices started spreading from outside. Several men were calling, and she could hear a faint sound of feet splashing upon the ground.
Her fists started to halt so she could listen more clearly. Then a thought came, and she reached to her lenses, tapping the left one three times, and the right one four times. The left activated its X-ray setting, the right turning to infrared. Both lenses operated together, letting Chloe look straight through the trunk and outside.
She took the scene in immediately. There were several men, soldiers by the looks of things. She counted five, one to the immediate left of the car, another four ahead, standing by a barrier. To the left, a small security hut stood, a sixth soldier inside.
A checkpoint, she thought.
One final figure appeared, closest to Chloe, and sitting in the front seat. She could see his heat signature glowing to life, his skeleton, his vital organs, his muscles, all visible now. One hand was on the steering wheel.
The guards were calling for the other to join it.
“Show us your hands!” she heard a muffled cry. “Both of them!”
She looked again at the figure behind the wheel, knowing it to be Ragan. Her eyes turned to his right hand, her X-ray lens looking through the thin metal shell of the car, and to the pistol he was holding, hidden on the seat beside his leg.
For a second, she had no idea who to root for. But, Ragan didn’t take much more than a second to act.
Suddenly, bursting from the vehicle, he kicked the door open and flew away. The soldiers’ guns exploded, bullets spraying after him as he went, some of them peppering the car with a violent burst. Chloe huddled her body tighter as a single bullet ripped through, lodging itself in the backseat before it could reach her.
It was a dazzling show of light, her infrared lens picking up the hundreds of bullets, burning hot and glowing crimson as they flew from the ends of boiling barrels. But none seemed to hit Ragan, the agent flying off behind the security hut and firing as he went.
The nearest guard, just to the left of the car, was the first to fall. Chloe couldn’t be sure if it was Ragan who’d shot him, or the guy had been caught in the crossfire of his colleagues’ barrage. Either way, it didn’t matter. The rest would join him shortly.
Within only a few seconds, the other soldiers were dropping like flies. Watching from inside the trunk, Chloe saw Ragan’s glowing red frame rush around the corner of the security hut and fire from the other side. He peppered the soldiers ahead of him and caught them off guard. They were no match for a man like him, a former member of the Panther Force, an agent of the CID.
These were just men, foot soldiers in the WSA army. Ragan was something far, far more.
Within seconds, only the guard in the security booth remained, huddled away in his hut and praying to go unnoticed. Chloe could just about see through the thin walls with her X-ray lens, noting the shape of a gun fixed to a holster on his hip. He had the means to fight. He just chose not to.
In the end, it might have been wise, if a little cowardly, if Ragan had been in a more generous and forgiving mood. Clearly, he wasn’t.
Marching around the side, he kicked the door in, raised his gun, and shot, execution style. Then, turning, he hurried back to the car, jumped inside, and turned the ignition.
Chloe felt a rumbling spread through the vehicle, as it began chugging and lurching away. It went about three feet, then stopped abruptly.
She could hear Ragan shout, “Dammit!” before getting out of the car, rushing to the barrier, and activating the controls to raise it. By the time he’d sat back down and shut the car door, the barricade had lifted, and he was gunning the gas.
Chloe cursed in a growl as the car sped off into the gloom. She might have used the brief firefight to try to escape, getting away while Ragan was distracted. But no, she had to sit and watch like a dumbass, so mesmerised by it all when seeing in through these strange lenses.
“Be smarter, Chloe!” she said, reprimanding herself.
Then, as she prepared to resume her banging, she stopped short and realised it would do no good. Ragan would hear it, and probably restrain her. If she was going to slip away, she had to follow her own advice.
Be smarter, Chloe…
19
Well that didn’t go as intended, thought Ragan as he gunned the engine, and sped off into the stormy afternoon. Behind him, a small litter of bodies lay dead, an unfortunate event and one he’d preferred to have avoided.
But then again, this was war. Any act between men from opposing nations could be handily tucked into that bracket. It always served to ease Ragan’s conscience when he was forced to take life in such circumstances.
He’d taken the soldiers out swiftly, forming his plan as they ordered for him to show them his hands, and then carrying it out with his usual efficiency. Now, he was firing his old hunk of junk down the road, stretching away into the craggy hills. In the back, and over the continual battering of the rain and the regular booms of thunder, he could no longer hear Chloe banging in the trunk. She might have passed out again, or else realised her attempted escape was futile.
Whichever it was, Ragan needed to check on her soon.
First, though, he had to put some distance between them and the city. As he’d been taking out the guards, he’d noted the presence of another couple of cars coming up the road behind him, ready to join the queue to pass through the security blockade. They’d have spotted the carnage as they arrived and immediately called it in. Most likely, the checkpoint itself will have had a camera fixed somewhere too, logging each individual vehicle and licence number as it passed.
It would take no time at all for this car he was in to spread through all security networks in the city. They’d come after him immediately, an
d he wouldn’t get far in this piece of trash. He needed to ditch it soon, and thankfully, he had an alternative mode of transport stashed not too far away.
The hillside was dark, and continuing to grow darker as the car rattled through the slashing rain. It was just coming off the back of winter, and the days were short, the sky darkening even beyond the heavy swamp of cloud overhead. Ragan was happy for that fact. He was used to operating in the dark, in the shadows. The stormy skies were a blessing to a man like him.
As he went, he reactivated his scanning lens, searching for nearby blockades out here beyond the city. They would be rare, more dispersed over these lands, but still in operation. The immediate net of security surrounding LA was just one of the many protective circles. There were others, spreading away for a hundred miles in each direction, ever watchful of the world beyond, and the skies above.
They were simple enough to avoid, however, as Ragan sought quiet, rugged roads through the mountains. The craggy wilderness beyond was so desolate now, so deserted. Yet there were many little places to hide, outcrops of rock, little canyons and caves, old settlements now either entirely abandoned or sparsely populated by the hardy, stubborn folk who would never leave them.
Really, this war hadn’t suited anyone. More and more, the people of the various nations were retreating to the safety of the capitals. Those who wished for nothing but to live normal lives, who cared little for the struggle for power between the governments that ruled them, had been forgotten and ignored. Beyond the countless deaths, countless more had been uprooted from their homes, their towns.
Jobs were lost, families decimated. Few prospered in this new world. And yet, despite it all, the wars raged on.
Of course, it all went in phases. While there was always some conflict going on, there were often periods of stalemate, of cold war. It was a constant arm wrestle that no one was winning. LA may have been the most powerful city, and the WSA the most powerful nation, but the truth was that this fight suited no one.