Children of a Dead Earth Book One (25 page)

The water treatment machinery was two levels down and two kilometers away from the lake, which seemed like foolish placement until one remembered the need to keep the whole spinning mass of the habitat modules in proper balance. The lake sat at one point of a triangle, the immense reservoirs waiting to be reclaimed sat at another, and the museum campus made up the third.

Benson led his men through the fading light with purpose. The odds were good that Bahadur's force would see the bulk of the action, but Benson's gut kept focusing on the poison threat, and that would mean sabotaging the filters. It wouldn't be hard to do, really. The water reclamation system had several stages, but the final stage consisted of banks of reverse-osmosis tubes hundreds upon hundreds of meters long that forced the water through nano-mesh screens under immense pressure. Poking a few holes in those screens would render the entire system useless and take days to find and repair.

By the time they neared the closest entrance to the water treatment plant, the lights above had gone dim. Somewhere in the back of Benson's brain, a little voice reminded him that they'd be floating the ball in preparation for push-off right about now. Maybe the last game of Zero ever played, and he was down here chasing terrorists. Trying to wipe out all human life was bad enough, but did they really have to be so inconsiderate of everyone else's schedules?

He brushed the thought aside as he opened the facility door. The four of them swept into the building and headed for a stairwell leading to the lower levels. So far, they had seen no one, but that wasn't terribly surprising. Nearly the entire facility was automated. The process at this stage wasn't nearly as labor intensive as some of the other upstream jobs.

Benson caught sight of the first workman from behind as they reached the first sub-floor landing. At first glance, he didn't look like one of Kimura's people, but it was hard to tell from the back. Carefully, he snuck up behind the shorter man, threw one arm around his neck, then cupped his free hand over his mouth to muffle the startled yelp.

“Relax, friend, I'm a constable,” Benson whispered. “I'm going to let you go now, but you have to be quiet. Nod if you understand.”

He did. Benson released his grip and quickly scanned the man for a plant. Gerald Lee, age forty-nine, supervisor of maintenance for the facility. Height, weight, and facial recognition all matched.

“You're in charge here?” Benson asked in a hushed voice.

“Yes.” Lee glanced at the other three constables coming down the stairs, their stun-sticks drawn. “What's all this about?”

“We think someone might be trying to tamper with the water system.”

“You mean like those bastards what knocked out the reactors?”

“Exactly like those bastards, yes. When did your shift start today?”

“17.00.”

Benson nodded. “Have you seen or heard anything strange? People here who weren't supposed to be?”

Lee shook his head. “No, sir. Just me and young Wilson. We only call in extra help when something breaks.”

“Which nothing has today?”

“Nope, running smooth as silk.”

“And where is ‘young Wilson'?”

“I… ah, I let him head off early to watch the match, sir. He's a big Mustang fan.”

Benson smirked. “No crime in that. Can you lead us down to the filters? We need to clear and secure the entire facility before we move on.”

“Sure, you're halfway there already. This way.”

They cleared the first level, finding nothing, then moved on to the second sub-level. Racks of filter tubes three meters tall filled the space and stretched out past the curve of the hull.

Benson said.

Hernandez asked in a half-whine.

Hernandez could be an insufferable jerk, but that didn't mean he was wrong. It really was a big space for four people to search.

He looked over at the workman. “Mr Lee, can you get out of here on your own?”

“Sure.”

“OK, call it an early day. Grab a beer and watch the match somewhere.”

Lee gave Benson a small bow. “Don't have to tell me twice.” The last Benson heard of him was the sound of his feet scurrying up the stairs.

They split into two-man units and methodically cleared the racks of filters, one row at a time. After five minutes, Benson was already wishing he'd followed Lee out of the building. He opened a link to Bahadur to check up on his team's progress.

Benson rubbed a bead of sweat from his forehead. Unsurprisingly, it was pretty humid in the water treatment plant.

Benson waited, nervous with concern for his comrade.

Benson held up a fist, signaling Hernandez to stop. “Cover me,” he whispered. Benson closed his eyes to avoid the disorientating double vision that came with a plant video overlay.

A moment later, he was looking out through Bahadur's eyes. Benson took a knee to fight the growing sense of vertigo caused by his eyes and his sense of balance being in completely different places.

He tried to look around, but of course it didn't work. Bahadur controlled the view. Benson was just a passenger.

Bahadur moved forward, his kirpan held tightly in his right hand. His team was pretty far below the surface already. The lake was ten meters deep at its lowest point, which meant it took up the first three sub-levels all by itself. The whole thing sat inside an enormous carbon-composite container, like a bathtub built for a Titan. The level below it was a tangle of pumps and pipes, as well as a forest of structural bracing much thicker than nearly anywhere else in the module, there to support and distribute the weight of tens of millions of liters of water.

Bahadur nodded and motioned for his team to tighten up their formation. He was careful to check his angles and corners, and to shine a light in the deeper shadows. Cautious, but relentless.

Bahadur's vision swept past something that Benson thought looked out of place.

The view swiveled back at a particularly thick support truss, obviously a primary loadbearing part of the system. Something round protruded from the base.

Bahadur did so and spotted the object. He bent down to get a closer look. It was a roughly cylindrical bag with a small grey box haphazardly stuck to the outside. The whole thing was fixed to the pillar with what looked like gaffer tape.

Benson asked.

Bahadur ran the fingers of his free hand through his beard.

Bahadur motioned his men to continue deeper into the maze. Something caught Bahadur's attention. He sprinted forward, kirpan at the ready.

The image became chaotic and rushed. Benson couldn't make sense of the rapidly flickering lights and deep shadows. Then everything stopped. Dead ahead, a hooded figure clad in the same black pullover as Benson's attacker hunched over a tablet. The man looked up and locked eyes with Bahadur. Illuminated by the soft light of the tablet's screen, Benson recognized Huang's face instantly.

he shouted into the link.

The image blurred as Bahadur lunged at Huang, but he anticipated the move and span off to the side. It wasn't without cost, however, as the tip of Bahadur's kirpan bit deeply into the back of Huang's left calf. Benson felt a predatory surge of excitement as Huang yelped and limped behind another pylon. Bahadur juked to the other side, trying to flank him as the rest of his men converged on the scuffle.

They chased each other around the pillar twice before Bahadur finally got a hand on Huang's ankle and brought them both crashing down to the deck in a pile of tangled limbs. The impact knocked the tablet from Huang's hand and sent it skittering across the floor. Huang wasted no time jumping to his feet before pulling a familiar knife.

Bahadur took a long step back and pulled his knife hand tight against his side, then brought his free hand up to his throat, protecting his heart, neck, and face. The ready stance gave Huang pause; he'd probably never faced down a trained knife fighter before. Favoring his left leg heavily, Huang lunged at Bahadur's stomach, but found only air. Instead, Bahadur deftly pivoted right, letting the point of Huang's blade slide by harmlessly while his off hand dropped down and grabbed his attacker's wrist. His kirpan glinted as it came forward and sank deeply into Huang's forearm.

Huang's face contorted in pain as he yanked his arm free of Bahadur's grip, causing even more damage as the kirpan tore skin and muscle as he struggled. Somehow, he managed not to drop his knife in the process and flipped it to his off hand. Bahadur calmly reset his stance and awaited the next attack. By then, the rest of Bahadur's team had set up a perimeter around the two men, cutting off all avenues of retreat or escape.

Bleeding freely from his arm, Huang took stock of his situation. After a moment's reflection, he flipped the knife around in his hand and grabbed it by the blade. But to the surprise of everyone, instead of surrendering, Huang flung the knife at Bahadur for all he was worth. Benson watched through his friend's eyes as the blade came tumbling through the air towards his face. The image in Benson's mind's eye was so realistic and immediate, he actually flinched.

Bahadur, by comparison, simply moved his head a few centimeters to the left and let the deadly blade pass before clanging harmlessly against a pillar some distance behind him. But by the time Bahadur looked back to Huang, the real damage was done. He'd used the distraction to grab his tablet. Huang looked up with a deranged, vicious smile as his finger hovered over a flashing red icon. With unbridled terror, Benson realized what was coming next.

“Stop him!” Benson screamed both into the link and out loud, but it was too late. Huang's finger came down, and the whole world went white. The flash overwhelmed Benson's visual cortex for a moment before an error message floated into view.

-
E
rror
: User Bahadur, Vikram J. cannot be located at this time. Please try your call again later.-

T
he shockwave raced
through the habitat's structure and up through Benson's feet. He opened his eyes and grabbed Hernandez by the arm. he shouted into his team's shared link.

They sprinted back towards the stairs and met up with his other unit. Benson took the steps three at a time in the race to get back to the surface. He tried to reestablish the link with Bahadur's plant in the slim hope that it needed to reset, but it was futile.

Four flights of stairs flew by as Benson reached the top and threw open the door to the outside. He looked to the lake. Smoke billowed from a half dozen wounds in Shangri-La's deck. Fire alarms screamed into the night from all directions. Alerts popped up through Benson's plant like billboards inside his eyeballs. He blocked them. He blocked everything and ran for the lake, dimly aware of his men trailing behind him.

But then, a shriek of tortured metal stopped him dead in his tracks. A third of the way around the module, the lake… sank, then disappeared entirely. A cloud of splashing water and debris rose in its wake. A heartbeat later, the cloud itself blew out, replaced by a field of stars in the shape of the missing lake and the howl of an approaching hurricane.

A
fog thick
as cream formed around the breach as hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of atmosphere blew out into space. For several seconds, Benson froze up as he stared blankly at the all-consuming horror unfolding before him.

It took Hernandez to shake him back into the present.

“Chief, we can't stay here!”

He couldn't argue the point. Benson's other men were already running full tilt for the lifts at the far end, but no matter which way they ran, the closest exit was a kilometer away. Even with the stadium filling up, north of twenty thousand people were still in Shangri-La, with only a few dozen lifts, that could only carry twenty people at a time.

Benson said into their mutual link.

Hernandez asked.

Benson looked back at the water plant when the solution struck him.

He led his team back down the stairs until they were three levels down. From there, the team ran as straight and fast as they could towards the aft bulkhead. It was the longest kilometer of Benson's life. The breach left from the lake tearing its way out of Shangri-La was over a hundred meters across, and nearly as many wide, but over six
billion
cubic meters of atmosphere were trying to force their way out of it. Benson didn't know the equations to figure the rate of escaping gasses. He hoped there was enough time for what he'd planned before they all suffocated.

The air around them cooled as the pressure dropped, but no one noticed. Their legs burned from the strain of sustained sprinting. Benson thanked his past self for refusing to skimp on his morning run around the habitat. Still, if they got out alive, he promised to do more interval training.

Finally, they reached the aft end of the module. As he'd hoped, they were completely alone. Sweating and huffing for air both from exertion and dwindling oxygen, Benson jogged the last few steps up to the lift. The queue for a lift car already stretched over an hour from everyone above trying to flee, but that wasn't his plan. Instead, Benson moved around to the maintenance hatch. For a terrifying moment, he couldn't remember the override code. He punched in numbers, trying to remember the pattern. The panel turned red.

“Dammit.” He tried again.

Red.

“C'mon!” Benson frantically jabbed his fingers at the keypad. On the third try, the panel turned green.

“Oh, thank God.”

Benson looked up the shaft's infinity with relief. It was clear. Either out of panic or lack of access, no one else had managed to get inside. They still had a fighting chance for survival.
And
, Benson thought darkly,
to avenge Vikram
. He wasn't sure how a Sikh would feel about revenge, but he knew they were big on justice. That would do.

He waved his men inside. “Everybody up the ladder. Double time.”

Hernandez looked up the shaft and turned about as white as he could. “You've got to be kidding.”

Benson's patience worn thin. “Then stay here.”

“But it's a kilometer straight up!”

“And? I climbed it a couple days ago. Unless the old man is in better shape than you?”

Hernandez scoffed, but took hold of a rung and started the long climb. Benson let the other two go next. He'd take up the rear. With the hatch sealed behind them, he used his security clearance to put a permanent lockout on the hatch that could only be overridden from Command. The hatch was airtight, and with it locked down, they didn't have to worry about somebody opening it in desperation and getting sucked back down hundreds of meters of shaft. That would be a bad day.

Another hatch gleamed three floors above. Ground level. The desperate screams of thousands of people blended together and echoed through the shaft. Fists on the other side pounded frantically against hatch. Benson's men glanced down at him, deep lines of guilt etched into their faces.

“We can save a few of them, at least,” his lead man said. It was said almost in a whisper. Benson understood the sentiment, he felt a powerful pull to do just that, a pull his rational mind had to fight against with all its might.

“Twenty thousand people are on the other side of that hatch. If we open it to let even one person through, we'll never get it closed again. And there's no way anyone will make it to the top before the air escapes.”

Everyone nodded understanding, but it was obvious none of them were happy about the grim reality. Benson wasn't a big fan of it either. As he locked out the hatch and continued up the ladder, he knew he'd be hearing the sounds of fists banging and people screaming for the rest of his life.

The climb was dramatically worse than he remembered. Then again, starting off with burned out legs and reduced oxygen levels didn't help. Three different times on the way up, Benson tried to get command on the link and update them of the situation, but each time he was met with error messages. The network was either down from the explosion and decompression, or the network's bandwidth had been overwhelmed in the aftermath.

When Benson and his exhausted team finally reemerged from the top of the maintenance shaft almost a full hour after the explosion, they were walking blind into the chaos inside the hub. The hatch swung open and Benson floated out into the micrograv. The lift terminal was to his right, but it was locked down. The hub itself was crammed with refugees from the decompression with nowhere else to go.

The match had been cancelled, obviously, and Benson picked out several players from both the Mustangs and the Yuoguai floating about, trying to help what was left of Shangri-La's constables keep order.

Someone in the crowd spotted Benson and pointed.

“That's him!” she shouted. “That's Bryan Benson, he's still alive!”

Every head in the corridor turned and shot daggers right at him. If looks could kill, Benson would have been lit on fire.

one of his constables asked tentatively.

The crowd floated menacingly close to his team.

“Sorry, chief,” Hernandez said from behind him. “But you're the threat.”

Benson turned his head around only to see all three of the men he'd just led to safety pointing their stun-sticks at his head.

He threw out his hands to calm down the brewing situation. “Whoa, everybody, what's the deal?”

“Orders just came in through our plants. You've been suspended by the Council. We were just sent the warrant for your arrest.”

“On what fucking charge?”

“Aiding and abetting the terrorist David Kimura.”

Benson didn't bother to hide his rage at the betrayal. “You'd all be bright blue right now if not for me!”

Hernandez shrugged. “And maybe a lot of other people wouldn't be. Now, are you going to comply, or do you intend to resist?”

Benson felt his leg and arm muscles tensing involuntarily. His lower brain was itching for a fight, but he forced himself to remain calm and assess. Hernandez had already floated too close in a sophomoric attempt to intimidate. Benson could get a hand on the overconfident young man and break his arm before he could hope to react. Worse, he was stupidly blocking a clean shot line for his partner behind him.

But that still left one stun-stick pointing at him, along with several hundred refugees who had also heard the news already.
And who told them that, I wonder?

He could
probably
take out Hernandez, could
probably
get a shot off at Flowers before she hit him, and could
probably
stay behind Hernandez long enough to hit the last man before he could get a decent angle. Aside from the other Zero players in the tube, nobody had his hours flying in micro, and few had his size and strength. He could probably stun thirty or forty refugees before they overwhelmed him, maybe even enough to get them to back off.

But even if everything went right, there was nowhere to go. Command was surely monitoring and would lock down the exits at the first hint of trouble. Then he'd just be the guy who attacked his own people while resisting arrest.

Benson was no lawyer, but he suspected that wouldn't look good at trial.

All of those thoughts passed between his ears in less than two seconds. By then, two of the late Chief Bahadur's people had floated in behind him and trained their stun-sticks on his back, cutting off any chance of even short term victory.

Growling like a cornered bear, Benson flicked his stick at Hernandez's face hard enough to make him flinch, then put his hands on his head.

L
ike hunters returning from safari
, Benson's captors paraded him down the boulevard on the way to formal booking at the stationhouse. Word spread fast as hundreds, if not thousands, of people lined the street to jeer and harass Benson as he sulked by in humiliation. Soon, the assembled rabble grew bolder, throwing the traditional lettuce and occasional tomato.

Some of them had good arms.

“Ow!” Benson said as a tuber struck him in the calf. “That was a potato!”

“Quiet,” Hernandez said.

“I'm a suspect under your protection,
constable
. You're not doing much protecting.”

“You're lucky I don't turn you over to them right here.”

“Forgetting your oaths now? You're sure not doing anything to enforce the Codes. I've never seen so much food wasted.”

Hernandez shoved him, hard enough that Benson had to take two big steps to keep from stumbling. The crowd roared in approval.

“Well, we have twenty thousand fewer mouths to feed, don't we,
chief
? Another word out of you and I'll stun your ass and drag you the rest of the way by your feet, face down. Now, walk.”

Benson strained against the plastic cuffs zipped too tightly against his wrists, itching for the chance to even up with the hothead, but this wasn't the time. Instead, he locked eyes straight ahead and did his best to dodge the occasional ballistic onion until they reached the end of the path.

The inside of the stationhouse offered a measure of calm compared to the mob outside, at least. But the price was seeing the angry, devastated faces of the men and women he'd led for the last five years. Theresa sat at the duty officer's desk, weeping softly into her hands. He frowned sympathetically at her as he was roughly led past. She didn't look up.

Hernandez shoved Benson into his office, where a familiar face sat behind his desk.

Chao Feng looked up and nodded to Hernandez. “Wait outside.”

Hernandez obeyed and shut the door behind him.

“Feng,” Benson muttered. “You're in my chair.”

“Not anymore. Sit, detective.” Feng motioned for the guest chair behind him. Benson caught a glimpse of an evidence bag in Feng's lap as he sat down, but he couldn't see what was in it.

“Should I be surprised you're behind this little witch-hunt? Because I'm not.”

“Witch-hunt?” Feng snorted. “That's an ironic charge, coming from you, detective.”

“We don't have time for your vendetta, commander.”

“Vendetta?” Feng leapt up from the chair and punched Benson in the gut as hard as he could, which admittedly, wasn't very hard. Benson anticipated the blow and tensed his abs. When he failed to double over, Feng stepped back, rubbing his wrist.

“So you brought me down here to work me over a little, is that it? You might want to bring Hernandez back in here. At least he can throw a punch.”

“This is funny to you? Two-fifths of the human race is dead. Including my wife, you bastard!” The fury returned to Feng's face, fueled by the anguish of another fresh loss. The admission hit Benson harder than Feng's fists ever could have.

“What about your boy? Is he safe?”

“Why do you care, butcher? You had Edmond killed, too, then set me up. Don't deny it!”

“I do deny it, categorically,” Benson said flatly.

“Oh really? Then explain this.” Feng reached back and grabbed the small evidence bag from the floor where it had fallen, then held it up to Benson's face. Through the clear plastic, Benson saw a crumpled slip of paper that had been smoothed out, with a handwritten note on it.

Benson's heart sank as he recognized it:

D
etective Benson
,

I
apologize
for our hasty departure, but my people voted to go into deeper hiding. We are aware the habitats will be stopped and are taking precautions. Our arrangement is still in place. We will be in touch soon.

S
incerely
,

D
avid Kimura

“
W
e found
this down in the sub-basement not long after the power failure. I wanted to have you arrested right then, but the Council disagreed. They chose to put you under surveillance instead. I couldn't believe it. It was bad enough you and your little harlot had spent almost every night of the last week contaminating a crime scene, but this?” He shook the letter furiously. “You're a disgrace, even to your own sullied name!”

Benson locked eyes with Feng. “Chao, I know how this must look, but it's not what you think.”

“Save it for the jury. I just want to know where he is. What's his plan?”

Benson shook his head. “I don't know.”

“Bullshit. We sent men down to the lake in Avalon and found the same stolen mining explosives that caused the breach in Shangri-La. But we got there before the terrorists finished rigging them up. Guess where that was? Less than a hundred yards past the point where you called off the search. You
knew
they were making preparations and stopped the search to protect them.”