Tales of Crow- The Complete series Box Set

by Chris Ward

  13

  The end of everything

  Lena reached what she considered the frontline on the seventh day out from the city. After days of driving through nothingness, she suddenly found herself negotiating her way through lines of refugees flanked by ragged soldiers and the occasional tank burnt out by the roadside. In the city of Omsk, on the eastern bank of the now frozen Irtysh River, she used her old contacts to get them through roadblocks and into the heart of a military operation that seemed disorganized and on the verge of collapse.

  A convoy took her to the headquarters of the city’s defence, in the basement of an old banking head office, and she was led down through twisting, poorly lit corridors, past doors guarded by soldiers.

  The man waiting behind the desk needed a stick to stand. Lines scored his ancient face, all of eighty years, if not more. The kindness she remembered from her formative years in the Secret Service before its restricting and her ejection were still there, as was the haunted look that the commander had carried with him from his own youth, from events he had never shared.

  She couldn’t keep the smile off her face. Dearer to her than her old grandfather, seeing him again was like seeing someone brought back from the grave.

  ‘Alek,’ she said, momentarily losing the composure that had made her one of the service’s most feared agents. ‘I thought you were dead.’

  The old man smiled. ‘I should have died a hundred times, but I’m still here. How are you, Lena?’

  ‘I guess if I wanted to pick one thing of everything, I’d say I’m confused. ‘What’s going on, Alek? What is this war? She threw her hands up in the air, the weeks of frustration finally getting on top of her. ‘No one can believe anything because of the hackers. Yet calling it the Hacker War seems so trivial, so ridiculous. Wars are fought by guns and blood, not men in darkened rooms with computers.’

  ‘War is fought in many ways, Lena. This is a new one, one we hoped would never come to pass.’

  ‘Why?’

  Alek sighed. ‘Because this time we’re fighting ourselves.’

  ‘A revolution? Is that what this is? All the talk is of Europe and America, pushing us back into the eastern sea.’

  Alek smiled, shaking his head. ‘If anything they’re on our side. It’s true that Europe’s at war, but not with us. With itself. With its own army.’

  ‘A military coup? Make sense, won’t you?’

  ‘I can’t make sense because none of this makes sense. Let me show you something.’

  Alek pressed a buzzer on his desk. ‘This is Commander Politov. I need an escort to take us to the research station on Zenkova Street.’

  As he switched the buzzer off, he leaned back, nodding slowly. ‘They say that the only way to believe is to see with your own eyes,’ he said. ‘Over the last two years I have found that to be true. Hold your judgments and your assumptions until I show you what I need to. Then, I think you will understand.’

  Patricia ran through the dark, slipping and falling on the ice. The snow had begun to fall again, and after one last explosion to the south the sound of bombs had gone quiet. The streetlights, covered by wooden boxes to hide them from the skies, cast barely perceptible circles of light on the ground, and she ran from one to the next, fearful of hurting herself in the dark.

  She was tired and freezing by the time she reached Nickolsky Street, where the boy had told her Esel’s gang had been attacked. At first she could see nothing, then as she approached one of the few streetlights in this area she saw the scuffs in the snow of running feet leading from an alleyway, accompanied by a line of lumpy squares of ice made by small caterpillar treads. On another day she might attribute them to a snow clearing machine, but now she followed them back towards the alley, getting on her hands and knees to feel them when the dark got too deep, until she found herself surrounded by the tall walls of two adjacent apartment blocks.

  Far to the east, the sky had caught the hazy hue of dawn, but it would be hours before it was light enough for her to see clearly. She made her way by feeling along until she reached a heap of snow piled against one wall.

  She dug her hands into it, feeling the telltale crunch of lumps of ice only recently begun to freeze together. And there, a few inches down, she touched something that was softer and more flexible than ice.

  The hood of a thick fur jacket.

  She knew it was Esel even before she had cleared away the snow and felt the frozen blood caking her twin brother’s face.

  Staggering back out of the alleyway, she tried to climb to her feet but failed. Pounding her gloves against the icy ground she screamed up at the sky, anger and sadness coursing through her.

  ‘I’ll find you,’ she cried over and over again. ‘Wherever you are, I’ll find you.’

  Alek Politov insisted on walking, even though his pace held up the party as they made their way into a huge warehouse on an industrial estate not far from the river port. Lena walked beside him, while the guards fanned out to either side, protecting them against some potent but unseen threat.

  ‘In here,’ Politov said, gesturing to a set of doors and having the men pull them wide. ‘Here is where you’ll begin to understand how this all went wrong.’

  The guards switched on overhead lights that filled the room with a cold, wintry glow. Inside was a lab, banks of computer equipment and tall steel cases filled with instruments, books and sample jars. Beyond a set of tables were several other doors, each numbered in sequence. Only one had a light on, and Politov led Lena across to it, leaving the guards by the door.

  ‘What you are about to see will turn on your head what you know about the nature of warfare,’ he said. ‘There may be stranger things in the world—’ here, his eyes seemed to glaze, as if recalling some long ago memory, ‘—but every so often a change happens that turns the disc a little faster than is safe. The space program, the invention of dynamite, fire … sometimes we humans make more mistakes than are necessary, and the world suffers for it.’

  He slipped a key into the lock and Lena helped him push open the heavy door. Lying in the middle of the room was what looked like a corpse, a damaged and smashed up human body, only at least twice the size of an average human. Then she noticed wires protruding from where an arm would have been and turned to look at Politov with a frown on her face.

  ‘It’s a robot?’

  ‘It’s a War Horse, Prototype Level Six.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘It’s a machine. A robotic body suit. It requires a rider, a human who is linked to the machine’s systems. We captured this one in battle and brought it here for analysis. Unfortunately, the rider died during transit. The systems of one affect the systems of the other. They share a symbiotic relationship.’

  Lena stared at the machine for a long while. Her eyes traced the outline of armour plating she had at first thought were the torn remains of a uniform but now realised were layers of camouflage that could be alternated depending on the terrain.

  ‘It’s a newer model,’ Politov said. ‘It has semi-autonomous control but the rider, once linked with the machine, is only in control of direct and immediate functions, not wider battle tactics.’

  ‘So it’s not like driving a tank?’

  ‘It depends on its orders. Due to its complexity, each War Horse typically requires a command team of two to three people.’

  ‘Like with a drone aircraft?’

  ‘Exactly. They have been mass produced, but it’s impractical to deploy more than a small battalion at any one time. The manpower required to deploy an entire army would require a command centre and an online presence that would be easily found by our spies and eliminated by our own planes.’

  Lena tapped a finger on the metal gurney holding the robot. ‘I’m in no way authorised to ask you these questions, sir, but I was sent to find out what the threat is to my city. How many of these things are out there?’

  Politov looked at her for a long time and the hopelessness in his eyes was haunting. ‘Thous
ands,’ he said. ‘Slowly marching across Siberia towards us. They’ve been separated into multiple groups of a few hundred each so they can cover more ground and cause more destruction, but at the moment all our own armies are doing is slowing the tide. Unless we can find out how to stop them we have no hope.’

  ‘Who built them?’

  Lena didn’t want to hear Politov’s answer, but when it came it was little more than a whisper, as if the air itself didn’t want to lend him the strength to say it.

  ‘We did.’

  ‘Then—’

  ‘Who’s controlling them? When controlling such a number is for all intents and purposes impossible?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Politov shrugged. ‘We don’t know. They were effectively stolen, several factories at once taken over in a massive concerted terrorist attack. Before we knew what was happening they were eating us from the inside out. Our military was in dismay, and by the time we regrouped we were unable to form a united, fortified front. Our forces are broken, suffering terrible losses whenever we engage the enemy in close combat. Our planes are ineffectual because the targets are so small, giving off no heat unless already damaged, meaning we might as well fire a missile at every parked car. We cannot use nukes on our own country, and surrender is of no use because they do not understand the rules of warfare. Every one of our battalions that has surrendered has been executed immediately. Every town captured has suffered the same. Systematic destruction.’

  ‘My god. Can’t you find who’s controlling them? If there are thousands of them out there, there will be a command centre somewhere. There has to be.’

  Politov shook his head. ‘No, there doesn’t. Our experiments on those we have captured have retained no stored data suggesting they’ve been following a series of updated orders. The signs are that a single, elaborate program is controlling them all.’

  ‘A computer? What computer could possibly be that powerful?’

  Politov gave a short, choking laugh, like a grieving widow holding off tears. He lifted an old, arthritic finger and poked it against the side of his head. ‘What computer is more powerful than the human mind?’

  ‘What are you suggesting?’

  ‘Nothing I can prove, Lena. Nothing that anyone would believe.’

  She walked over to the robot, looking down at its humanoid frame. Heavy armour-plating covered its chest region, and she could see the marks of dozens of bullets on the casing.

  ‘How bad is this, sir?’

  Politov turned and walked to a chair near the wall. He slumped down on it, putting his head in his hands, shaking it slowly back and forth. Lena suddenly felt sorry for him, that here was a very old man who should have been able to spend his last few years in peace, perhaps sitting on a porch somewhere, looking out at fields, watching life as it ticked by, taking with it all his regrets and failings, leaving his mind at ease.

  ‘It’s very bad. Imagine an army of soldiers that do not need to rest. They take dozens of hits to bring down and they suffer from none of the usual issues that make human soldiers easy to fight. The machine protects the rider from the cold and shields the rider so that body heat is undetectable. They’re small enough that they can hide, and they can jump higher, run faster, climb better, than any human ever could. They’re relentless, moving forward until they’ve been shot apart, piece by piece. This is what we face.’ He lifted his head to look at her. ‘If we don’t stop them they will eat their way across our country until there is no one left. Then perhaps they will move on somewhere else. They are capable of wiping out the entire human race.’

  Lena stared at him. ‘If I may ask, sir, what is their fuel source?’

  Politov couldn’t meet her gaze. It took him a long time to answer, and when he did, it was barely a whisper.

  ‘Believe me, you do not want to know.’

  Part II

  The Secrets of the Secret Place

  14

  Interview with the Devil

  ‘Wake up, won’t you, sire?’

  Victor leapt up as freezing water doused him, spinning in an awkward circle before scrambling back against the wall. Wiping sleep out of his eyes, he glanced towards the door, but it had been closed now, and was likely locked. The monster sat opposite him, naked as far as he could tell, squatting in front of the fire as if it had been born out of the flames. Its skin was a latticework of scar tissue, like a skeleton dipped in marbling water, punctuated with little tufts of feathers. As Victor watched, it picked up a piece of something from the ground, tore off a strip of what he thought was meat, and pushed it into a small mouth below a huge bird’s beak.

  ‘I imagine you’re a little cold now.’

  Victor could do nothing other than shiver, not even open his mouth. The terror he felt was absolute, but even so, the fire behind the monster looked so inviting.

  ‘I won’t hurt you … unless I have to. In some ways I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.’

  Victor said nothing. This couldn’t be the stranger, could it? Not this … abomination? The robot must have been stolen, the stranger tricked out of it by this hideous creature….

  ‘Here.’ It pointed to its side. ‘The knife went in here. You saved me.’ The monster tossed the piece of dried meat into the fire, causing a little plume of sparks. ‘And I no longer have to eat this, thanks to the food you brought me.’

  Victor just stared at the monster, his mouth dry.

  ‘A penny for your thoughts? Wondering what I am, I guess you are? Wouldn’t that be close to the truth?’

  The creature stood up. It walked a few steps towards Victor, looming large in front of the fire, its scarred body dark with shadow. Victor found it hard to look up at its face, the gnarled crust of a beak where its nose should have been, the bald, scarred head tufted with feathers, the black eye that watched him like a hawk.

  ‘Aren’t you going to thank me for fixing up your robot? A little give and take would be nice, wouldn’t it?’

  Victor coughed. He felt so cold his body must be shutting down. He stared at the creature’s gnarled feet, wishing that hypothermia could kill quicker, put him out of his misery.

  ‘Sorry about that little shower,’ the monster said. ‘But you were snoring, and I hate a man who snores. So rude, don’t you know?’ He lifted one hooked hand and rubbed his chin. ‘But I forgive you, sire. Good neighbour that I am.’

  At last Victor found his voice. ‘Cold….’

  The creature stepped forward and reached down quicker than Victor would have thought possible. A hard, pincer-like grip dragged him up by the shoulder and shoved him back across the room. He stumbled to his knees in front of the fire, and, unable to help himself, shuffled as close to the warmth as he could.

  ‘I won’t ask how you found me,’ the monster said from Victor’s shoulder, the warmth of its breath so close that Victor gasped and squeezed his eyes shut, hoping that if he concentrated, he might wake up from a very bad dream in his own bed. ‘But it was careless of me to leave that robot’s memory alone. I guess I didn’t expect you to have equipment capable of extracting my location. I have come to expect nothing from this disgusting little town.’

  ‘Who…?’

  ‘Who am I?’

  The claws took hold of Victor’s shoulder again, twisting him around. He gasped, terrified, squeezing his legs shut to stop his bladder emptying. Hard points pushed into one of his eyes and his lids were forced open.

  ‘Look at me, damn you. I don’t have to do it, thank the mighty heavens, but you do.’

  The monster’s face was mere inches from Victor’s own, and his eyes filled with tears of fear as he took in the bumps and curves and scars of the worst thing he had ever seen. Had he seen such a thing come out of a woman’s womb, even someone as passive as he might have been glad to see it drowned in the nearest river.

  The tiny grey lips pulled back in a smile. ‘Oh, I disgust you, don’t I? What a delightful turn of events. I’m sure you’ll sleep well tonight, sire. Like a bab
y, wouldn’t I suggest? Do you have children, sire? Do they look anything like me?’

  ‘No … children,’ Victor wheezed.

  The monster pushed him away and stalked back across the room. Victor, remembering his wet clothes, rolled closer to the fire, keeping the creature in sight as it stalked out through a doorway into an adjacent room. For a few seconds Victor thought about trying to flee, but he was still soaking, and even if he could get out of the door before the monster came back, he would freeze to death out on the streets.

  A shadow fell over the stone floor and then the creature returned, something clutched in its spindly fingers. Victor flinched as it squatted down beside him and held out a tiny photograph of an unsmiling Asian woman, her head wrapped in a shawl, sitting on a stone wall outside a shack made of corrugated iron.

  ‘My mother, sire.’ A bony finger gave the woman’s face a disdainful prod. ‘The bitch. I’ve been hunted across the world yet this fucking photograph follows me like a fly wanting to feast on my remains.’

  The monster sat down on the floor beside Victor, holding the photograph up in two hands. ‘I really was that child with a face only a mother could love. Yet she didn’t. She sold me like a piece of furniture she didn’t want anymore. It wasn’t even to the highest bidder, because there was only one.’

  He sprung up suddenly and flung the picture towards the fire, only to reach out one spindly finger to pluck it out of the air just inches above the flames. ‘Oh, mother dear, lost angel of my life, creator of so much yet so little. One day I will say goodbye to you forever, but not today.’

  As the heat of the fire gradually sucked the cold and damp out of his clothes, Victor’s fear began to reside, allowing for a flicker of curiosity to take its place. The monster was still holding the photograph between two fingers like a delicate flower, and was speaking to it in a language that Victor didn’t recognise, like a remarkably ugly character actor preparing for a final performance.