The Veil

by Torstein Beck

  ‘She tried to save me. She threw herself at one to save me.’ Aaro blinked hard and another tear tumbled down his cheek.

  ‘Yeah, she did save you. Like my father, my sister, my mother, my brother. They didn’t die in vain, not so long as we sit here, living and breathing, remembering them and carrying on hope. So we can take a minute, no more than two strangers in the crush of all these people, and sit, and that’s fine. But we have to get up, we have to move on eventually, for their sake. Otherwise, Emilie, she will have died for nothing. You understand?’ The girl put her arm around Aaro again.

  He sighed and looked down into Emilie’s eyes. She was still here, her smile in the air, her fingers whispering over his skin.

  She’s right you know. I died to save you Aaro. Because I love you. I want you here with me, with Lila. I want to be with you, but it’s just not the same, where I am and where you are. It’s not life. Not really. If you join me, you’ll be sorry you didn’t fight, sorry you didn’t try. I’ll be here, always and forever. You’ll hold your daughter again some day, but someday is a long way away yet. You’re a good man Aaro, you can help people. It wasn’t your fault. Please know that it wasn’t your fault. And, that I love you. Know that, always.

  Aaro exhaled and Emilie faded away in the tender swirl of his breath. He lifted his head to look at the girl again. ‘Thank you,’ he murmured. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Lila,’ she said with that same soft smile.

  He let out an abject chuckle and choked up again. ‘I had a Lila. She’s gone too now — my daughter.’

  She nodded, maybe lost for words, maybe just not wanting to alter his own perception of what that meant, but it didn’t fill him with sadness, it struck with a strum of hope.

  He pulled his feet underneath him and rose.

  Lila stayed sitting, not wanting to invite herself anywhere. She was polite. Aaro kicked the bike off the stand and took the weight. She was prepared to let him leave and go on alone if need be. But it didn’t need to be like that. Aaro turned to her. ‘You want to walk with me?’

  She nodded, the smile not dislodging from her pale lips.

  He offered her a hand and she pulled herself to a stance. She dusted her jeans off and, once more they moved forward with the crowd, part of a whole again. Both alone, but both with each other, and everyone else.

  They reached the camp gates and passed through them, no more than makeshift steel slabs on hinges hung off posts driven into the ground. The fence matched, erected overnight by an army. Chain Link and concrete posts. Even now the military worked, driving posts in, twisting ties, spinning razor wire, bracing the supports. They had used a natural break in the road, where the trees stopped and opened into fields. The roadway led straight into the camp which spanned further than they could even see from the gates.

  People with tablets and megaphones instructed people to keep moving, to head to the centre of the camp for directions. And so they kept moving, trundling down a corridor hemmed in by tents, until they approached a crossroads. Four separate roadways converged and the camp had been built around it. Between the roads were tents with red crosses, ones draped with camouflage netting. There were idling trucks, ambulances, and guard towers, and thousands of people. Aaro was in shock. People were pouring in from all directions, clustering together in a loud, stinking crowd.

  When they reached the crossroads, they filed into a queue heading for a circular setup of desks and trucks, right on the asphalt, where dozens of people in military jackets held tablets and assigned specific areas for people to head to. Get your section and find yourself a bed inside a tent with a hundred strangers. That was the plan. There was nothing else they could do, Aaro supposed.

  He couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that they were sheep heading to slaughter, but he was too exhausted to question it. Lila was too, by the look of her. She trudged along next to him, dipping and stumbling every now and then, dark circles under her eyes, thin more than slim. She had no more than strength of will driving her forward. Aaro admired it.

  They oozed forward in the melee. There were cars everywhere, pulled off the road and left on it, squeezed between the tents, wedged bumper to bumper and door to door. No one said anything about Aaro’s bike. People were carrying bags and pulling trolleys and suitcases with their belongings in. All he had was that bike and the clothes he was in, and neither belonged to him. Lila only had a rucksack that looked not even half full. They reached the assignment area and were directed to Zone H, a collection of tents that were quickly filling. They chose the biggest one that also housed a makeshift soup kitchen where volunteers were handing out food, water and aid supplies. Aaro picked a cot next to a flap in the tent wall that could be peeled back. He wheeled the bike through it and left it there on the kickstand in the small walkway between theirs and an adjacent tent.

  He replaced the flap and stretched, every joint popping and cracking. He sank on to his cot and sighed, rubbing his eyes.

  A man approached with some sacks slung over his shoulder. He offered one to Aaro. A survival pack. He took it, and one for Lila too, who had disappeared for the moment. He spotted her in line for some food. He would join her in a little bit but he needed to sit for a while. He opened his sack and pulled out the thin sleeping bag that was inside. There was also a foil blanket, some food bars, water and a tarp. He laid out the sleeping bag and lay back on the canvas cot, staring at the grubby white ceiling.

  He must have dozed off for a moment, because when he stirred, Lila was there. He opened his eyes to find her offering him a plastic bowl full of thin broth.

  ‘Stew,’ she said, spooning it into her mouth as quickly as she could. ‘It’s not bad. Best I’ve had in the last few days.’

  Aaro didn’t bother with the spoon. He was still cold. Ever since the river. He slurped it down gleefully, straight from the bowl. It was warm and that was the important thing.

  There wasn’t much else to do, and as the afternoon started to fail, so did Aaro. He kept his jacket and boots on and wiggled into his sleeping bag. He fell asleep quickly, practically passing out from exhaustion.

  And when sleep came, so did the nightmares. The night before was replayed over and over on a continuous loop. The storm, the cries of his daughter, the silhouette over the cradle, the blood. Emilie. Lila. The glass. The pain. The rain. The ground. The darkness. And over again.

  As he was experiencing it for at least the fiftieth time, he jolted awake.

  Just outside the tent wall, centimetres from him, the pounding of footsteps on the ground were loud, and numerous. That strong, unison stride of dozens of soldiers and the clacking of guns being cocked and loaded was the first hint that things were going wrong. The military was mobilising.

  None of the troops were talking. They were trying to be quiet. Not to start a panic.

  The loud clang of steel on steel, the butt of a rifle clipping the bike as a soldier ran past was the confirmation that it wasn’t a dream. He sat bolt upright and looked around. The tent was in total darkness. No one heard it. No one seemed to care.

  There were too many people sobbing or talking for them to register. The hum of a generator in the centre. The whistle of a kettle on a camping stove. The snoring of those who managed to sleep. It all drowned out the boots and rifles. No one else had roused or picked up on it. He looked at Lila. She was sleeping, her face contorted and flushed. He checked his watch. It was almost four in the morning. He leaned down and opened the flap, sticking his head out. In the darkness, droves of dark shapes, a legion of troops, all ran in the same direction.

  They were assembling for something, but not just for something.

  That implied that Aaro didn’t know what it was, but he did. The troops made no sounds of alarm. They weren’t alerting anyone. If there was a panic, it would be impossible to organise the army, to get them where they needed to be. No, they would just go about it as quietly as they could, try to deal with the issue without waking anyone or starting an evacuation. It mad
e their jobs easier. It made mounting a defence easier, but Aaro knew all too well that by the time the first shot was fired, it was already too late. If the fence was overrun, or when the fence was overrun, they’d all be savaged in their sleep. He thought for a second, weighing it up. If he woke everyone, he’d never get out. They weren’t near the edge of the camp, and they were closer to the side on which the military was amassing than they were the far side.

  The camp was just outside Kongsberg, eighty kilometres from Oslo. That was still the best bet. It had to be. A larger population, as well as the government headquarters, and everything else of any importance. That’s where the military would concentrate their forces, surely? It would be fortified and protected. It had to be. It was their only hope.

  He wasn’t a he anymore, he was a they. Him and Lila. He couldn’t leave her. He couldn’t lose anyone else.

  His heart was hammering as he rolled out of bed. He knelt next to Lila’s cot and shook her gently. She stirred and he shook her again.

  ‘Lila!’ he hissed. ‘Wake up. Lila!’

  She grumbled quietly. ‘Aaro? What is it?’

  ‘We’ve got to go.’

  ‘Go where? What time is it?’ she mumbled, rubbing her eyes.

  ‘Oslo.’ He turned now, stuffing his stuff into the survival sack. He made sure he kept the pistol on him, jamming it into his belt.

  ‘Why?’ she asked quietly, sitting upright.

  ‘They’re back. They’re here,’ he said quickly, turning to look at her.

  ‘What?’ she said a little loudly, suddenly alert. People around them began to stir now, perturbed by the noise.

  ‘Shh!’ Aaro urged her. ‘Come on, we’re getting out of here before shit hits the fan.’

  Aaro pulled the cloth sack tight and looped the strap over his shoulder and across his chest. He pulled Lila off her cot and sat her on his. He pushed her boots towards her and jammed her sleeping bag into her rucksack without being asked.

  Within a minute they were slipping through the flap in the tent. The sun wasn’t close to rising yet but the camp was far from asleep. Soldiers were still running south in droves.

  Aaro climbed onto the bike and pushed the key into the ignition. He nodded to Lila and she got on behind him, her hands around his waist. He twisted the throttle to get some fuel into the pump and then kicked the starter. The bike spat into life, the noise of the engine cutting through the witching-hour silence like a gunshot itself. But it didn’t matter.

  He changed from first into second and took off at a steady pace. The bike was a lot less nimble with two people on it and the corridors between the tents were dark and narrow. He had to be careful.

  From the centre heading out, the density of the tens began to thin until they neared the outer fence, where they pulled up altogether. He cut left onto the trodden-in path around the edge and headed towards the northern entrance. Two soldiers ran into the road at the gate with their rifles hanging in one hand, the others raised to stop them. Aaro hit the brakes and skidded to a stop, leaving a black streak on the tarmac.

  ‘Stop,’ the first commanded. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘We need to get out of here,’ Aaro said exasperatedly.

  ‘The gates are locked. And we’re under orders to keep them that way. Nothing gets in, or out,’ the second soldier said harshly.

  ‘You don’t understand—’ Aaro started.

  ‘No,’ the first guy cut in. ‘It’s you who doesn’t understand. This place is safe. We’re safe behind these fences. Those things can’t get in. If you go out there, you’ll die.’

  ‘If we stay in here we’ll die. We all will. Those things can’t be stopped, especially not by chain link fences and machine guns.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ the second guy asked, a little more concerned now.

  ‘Shit,’ Aaro shook his head. ‘You haven’t even seen one have you?’

  ‘We’ve been briefed on the situation and are well equipped to deal with it.’

  ‘Bullshit. You don’t know what you’re doing. Things are about to get really bad here. As soon as they breach the fence, it will already be too late. All you can do is run.’

  The two guards shot each other an uneasy look.

  ‘So what, we just organise a mass evacuation for no reason?’ the first said emphatically, shaking his head.

  ‘No reason? Do you not see all the guys with guns running south? That’s not for no reason!’ Aaro nearly yelled, annoyed by this wastage of time.

  ‘Civilians are not supposed to know about that!’ the other said sharply.

  ‘Look, I don’t care what your plans are, but I’m telling you that if you don’t let us through this gate right now, and then make a break for it yourself, we’ll die, along with everyone else in here.’

  They exchanged another look. ‘So what, we all just run away, is that it? Abandon our posts? We don’t hold our ground? Fight?’

  ‘There is no fighting them. And no, there’s no point running either. You can try but on foot you’ll never make it.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. We’ve got two hundred men. Rifles. Machine guns. This will be over before it starts. Now go back to bed.’ The second one half scoffed it, determined to carry out his mission to the letter.

  Aaro growled in frustration. ‘No it won’t. It doesn’t matter what guns you have, how many men — there’s nothing you can do. Everyone here is already dead. Just get a vehicle, and get out while you can.’

  ‘We can’t just leave our posts. We’re bound by our orders,’ the braver one said as resolutely as he could.

  ‘And you will die because of them. Please, just open the gate, close it once we’re through if you want. Just please, let us through… Please,’ Aaro pleaded.

  They looked at each other again before looking back at Aaro. ‘I’m sorry, we’re under strict orders. It’s not safe. You’ve got to stay in the camp.’ They stood firm now, decidedly disbelieving of Aaro’s harsh truth.

  He sighed and was about to argue more when he felt Lila’s hand on his back. He felt her fingers lift the back of his jacket. He didn’t know what was happening until he felt her hand close around the grip of the pistol. She tugged it free, her eyes not leaving the soldiers over his shoulder, and reached carefully around Aaro’s waist, under his hem, laying it on the top of his thigh. He turned his head, his heart in his throat. She leaned in and whispered in his ear, her voice steady. ‘Do it. I’ll get the gate. I don’t want to die here, Aaro, do you?’

  He swallowed hard, his hands suddenly shaking around the handlebars. Killing a monster was one thing but to gun down these two innocent men because they’d been severely misinformed of what they were up against? That was just cold-blooded murder.

  But then again, if the soldiers stayed, they would die anyway. And wasn’t it more humane this way? A bullet to the brain over getting torn apart by a wild beast?

  That was his reasoning. It made just enough sense in his mind. Lila hugged him a little, squeezing gently in encouragement before she swung her leg off the bike.

  This was it. He had no other choice. It was this or die. Kill. Or die.

  The two men moved to stop her, to ask her what she was doing, but they didn’t get chance. Aaro levelled the pistol and fired twice into the soldier who was closest. He hit him in the throat and then the cheek. His face exploded in a bloody mess and he spun to the floor, already dead. The other guy swore loudly and fumbled to lift his rifle. He staggered backwards but never got it above his hips. Aaro fired three times. The first struck him in the arm and he let out a pained scream, the next connected with his upper chest. His flak jacket stopped the round but still knocked him off balance, winding him too. The scream was cut short in the darkness as the wind was ejected from his lungs. The next shot hit him in the soft palate of flesh under his chin. He had lifted his head as he staggered and the bullet tore clean through his larynx and straight into his brain. He hit the ground with a loud thud and laid still
.

  Aaro froze, spots from the muzzle flash dancing in his field of vision. He was numb, ashamed, sickened.

  ‘Aaro. Aaro. Aaro! AARO!’ It was Lila, yelling at him.

  The gate was open enough to squeeze through. He shook himself back to reality and gunned it, weaving between the dead bodies, not daring to look at them. He stopped just over the threshold and waited for Lila. She dashed through and pulled it closed behind her.

  They didn’t say another word as they sped off into the pre-dawn. They just listened in silence to the first sporadic pops of distant guns behind them. In seconds they grew to a constant rattle.

  And then came the screams. Haunting, pained screams that seemed to echo through the forests around them like ghosts.

  Ghosts that followed them all the way Oslo.

  TWENTY-SIX

  PLAYING GOD

  2106 AD

  He felt a mixture of things, standing in the command centre, in the same spot he had been ten years before.

  Gertlinger leaned heavily on the catwalk rail. For the last decade he’d been waiting, afraid he’d die before it ever happened.

  He retired at seventy-six, just after he’d had the call that the Argus was back in range. It had felt like the right time. He’d been comfortable and relaxed since, set up for life a hundred times over, and spent his days as most rich and lonely old men do. He sat on tropical beaches with beautiful young women, drinking expensive drinks and indulging in all of his fantasies. As clichéd and lecherous as it was, who wouldn’t? Who, without a family or friends, fresh from a life of moving here there and everywhere, working eighty hours a week, every week, wouldn’t spend their remaining days living they way they always wished they had.

  He took his phone everywhere, monitoring the program that constantly calculated the ETA of the Argus, watching it count down from nearly eleven years. The kilometres rolled towards zero a blur, but the numbers were colossal, gargantuan even. Tens of trillions. But slowly and surely with the passing of time, they churned by, accompanied by a little spaceship icon that rode along a little line on the screen, sweeping past dots as landmarks, all with annotations, getting closer to the last dot, the destination. A dot for Pluto, a dot for Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Moon and finally Earth.