Furnace 4 - Fugitives (16 page)

‘Alex?’ prompted Zee.

‘Yeah, it sounds like a plan,’ I said when I realised they were all waiting for me. ‘You three head for Meriton.’

‘You’re not coming with us?’ Simon asked.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve got something else to do.’

I watched the curtain of smoke heal itself, blocking the view once again. But beyond it that tower was still there. It was still waiting. And when I spoke again I was speaking to it.

‘One way or the other, I’m going to end this.’

Rescue Party

They started to argue with me, as I’d known they would. But their words were drowned out by the sudden thump of helicopter rotors, the thunder growing to an unnerving crescendo as two choppers broke past us, one on either side of the cathedral dome. We clutched our heads, the whirlwind threatening to spill us over the edge into oblivion. Lucy screamed, jumping back down onto the balcony and crouching against the curved wall, her face buried in her hands.

The helicopter to our right dived earthwards, its side door open and a machine gun mounted there, manned by a soldier in camouflage. He swung it towards the cathedral, flames spouting from the barrel as he fired at something we couldn’t see. The very stone of the building seemed to groan, heat shimmering from the tiles, as if the fire that raged inside had brought this ancient Goliath of wood and stone to life.

The other bird stayed high, another machine gun swivelling over the roofs of the surrounding buildings, a helmeted face visible in the dark interior. Zee stood,
waving his arms and calling for help. It was a bad idea, but I didn’t have time to tell him that before the door gunner caught sight of us, sweeping the .50 calibre cannon our way and unleashing a torrent of lead. The balustrade to the right of us exploded into shrapnel, bullets puncturing the dome, bombarding us with chunks of stone. I toppled backward, dragging Simon with me, the pair of us landing awkwardly on our backs.

‘Stop shooting!’ Zee yelled, holding his ground. After what felt like forever – but had probably been no more than a second – the gunner must have realised his mistake. The weapon fell silent, the chopper suddenly angling down towards the street. Zee swore at it, hurling abuse at the soldier who had tried to kill us. ‘We’re on your side!’ he called out. ‘Take us with you!’

There was no way they could have heard him. I ran to the gap the shells had made, holding onto a fractured stone post and watching the two helicopters hover twenty metres or so over the plaza. They were both now shooting at the base of the cathedral, at the place where the truck had crashed, although we couldn’t see what was going on.

‘Look out!’ Zee yelled.

Something was moving along the roof of the cathedral beneath us, its feet scrabbling for purchase, sending tiles flying in every direction. I recognised the baby face of the berserker as it blasted forward on all fours, heading right for the choppers.

It launched itself from the roof, hitting the first bird’s tail and causing it to veer wildly to one side. The
berserker’s grip slipped but it held on. It lashed out with one leg, catching the tail rotor and causing it to spin off, tearing a chunk from a shop. The chopper started to spin, the berserker clawing its way down the fuselage and swinging through the open door. The gunner fell, already in pieces, and the bird screamed up towards us, its blades clipping the cathedral dome metres from where we were standing.

With a deafening crunch the rotor came loose, the helicopter dropping fast. The berserker threw itself from the door, grabbing hold of a metal drainpipe on the cathedral wall, not even pausing for breath before bounding out of sight. Then the chopper landed on its side, its rotating blades catapulting it over the plaza and into the shops beyond where it disappeared in a fireball.

The second helicopter was rising, but it was too close to the cathedral. The berserker did exactly the same thing as before, launching itself through thin air as the bird drew level with it.

This time, however, the pilot knew what to expect. The machine tilted at the last second, slicing up towards the airborne berserker. The creature flailed, desperately trying to change direction. But there was nothing it could do, hurtling into the rotors and exploding in a black mist. What was left of it sailed over the rooftops, impossibly far and impossibly graceful, falling out of sight streets away. A shower of black blood splattered the plaza below.

‘Result!’ yelled Simon who had run to my side, his arm looped around my waist so that he could lean over
the balcony. He punched the air with his other hand.

But the chopper had suffered too. I heard the whine of the engine, smoke pouring from the exhaust. It struggled, banking hard one way then tilting back towards the cathedral. Even from up here I could hear the constant beep of the alarm as it began to spiral towards the street. The pilot managed to keep it steady, landing with a bump next to the corpses of the soldiers. The engine cut out, the growl growing quieter as the rotors slowed.

‘Come on!’ yelled Zee. He was clambering down onto a rusted iron ladder bolted into one of the huge columns that surrounded the dome. ‘This is our chance.’

‘Our chance for what?’ I asked, waiting for Lucy to follow before doing the same myself, telling myself I shouldn’t look down but unable not to. The sloped roof wasn’t too far beneath us, though, and we reached it in under a minute. Zee teetered to the edge, scanning the wall before jogging over to another ladder, wedged in the right angle of the building’s cross. He vanished, Lucy next, Simon pushing in front of me with a mumbled ‘excuse me’.

I peered over, noting that we were about two storeys from the ground, and decided to give the ladder a miss. I climbed over the vaulted wall, dropping effortlessly onto a ledge halfway between the roof and the plaza. Then I skipped off that and landed in time to greet Zee at the bottom. He gave me a puzzled double take when he stepped off the ladder and turned round to see me waiting.

‘Take your time,’ I said, glancing at a watch I didn’t have.

‘Show-off,’ he replied, helping Lucy find the ground in a way that was a little more touchy-feely than it needed to be. I gave him a knowing smile before she could turn round and he scowled at me, his cheeks glowing.

The northern arm of the cross-shaped cathedral was between us and the helicopter, but there was evidence of the battle everywhere. Across the street was the row of shops which had been decimated – the wreckage of the first chopper long lost beneath a blanket of flames. Heat hovered over the entire plaza, fierce enough to have made some of the trees here spontaneously combust. And everywhere there were splashes of black where the blood of the berserker had rained down, glistening in the firelight like spilled oil.

I realised Zee was off again, jogging around the stone wall of the cathedral. I caught up with him just as he was rounding the bend, seeing the helicopter resting on the pavement between the plaza and the street. It had crushed a bench and a bin, rocking unsteadily as its rotors slowed. The pilot was standing in the doorway peering up at the engine, the rattle of which drowned out our approach until we were halfway across the plaza. As soon as he noticed us the door gunner swivelled his machine gun our way, his finger on the trigger.

‘Hold it!’ he yelled, startling the pilot. She clambered inside the chopper door, ripping her pistol from a holster. The four of us froze, but Zee took one step closer, his hands raised.

‘We’re human,’ he said, his choice of words making the situation feel even more surreal than it had before. ‘We’re human, like you. Don’t shoot.’

‘On the floor,’ the pilot shouted, a young woman with cropped chestnut hair. ‘Spread your arms and legs. Do it now; I won’t tell you twice.’

We did as she ordered, resting on the cold, damp stone as the pilot walked cautiously over and patted us down. She left me till last, prodding my swollen arm with her pistol. The barrel came away wet, a strand of clear fluid like saliva trailing between her weapon and my skin. I waited until she had moved back before pulling my shredded sleeve down as far as it would go, suddenly ashamed.

‘You can all get up,’ she said. ‘Except you.’

I didn’t have to look at her to know she was talking about me. I watched as Zee, Lucy and Simon all got to their feet, brushing themselves down. The pilot holstered her pistol, resting her hands on her hips, but the chopper gunner never took his sights off us.

‘Identify yourselves,’ the pilot demanded.

‘Zee Hatcher,’ Zee replied. ‘This is Simon Royo-Flores and Alex Sawyer, and Lucy … Sorry, Lucy, I don’t know your last name.’

‘Wells,’ she said. ‘You have to help us. There are things out here; we’ve been attacked.’

‘Yeah, you and everybody else in the city, sweetheart,’ the pilot said. She looked at me.

‘What’s going on with that arm of yours? Looks infected. Looks a hell of a lot like one of those
things
to me.’

‘I’m not infected,’ I replied, not knowing if I was lying or not. ‘I’m a good guy, honestly. I’m one of you.’

I didn’t know if that was a lie either, but the pilot seemed to soften.

‘Okay, okay. I’m Captain Annabel Atilio. D Company, First Battalion Home Defence. Why don’t you kids tell me what you’re doing out here.’

No sooner had she spoken than a rally of screeches broke free from the constant roar of the fire, trailing down the street and echoing off the cathedral walls. The pilot stiffened, peering into the smoke that blocked off the route back into town.

‘Hold that thought,’ she said. ‘The chopper’s nuked. Let’s get some wheels and you can tell me when we’re moving.’

Groundbound

Captain Atilio led the way to the truck we’d seen earlier. It was resting against the cathedral wall, surrounded by chipped stone and the remains of the rat it had squashed there. It looked like a Hummer, painted beige, with metal plates bolted over the windows. There was a grey cloud rising from the bonnet but it looked more like steam than smoke.

‘M-ATV,’ said Atilio. ‘Designed to survive roadside bombs so it should be okay.’ She pulled out her pistol again, holding it in one hand while she tried the door. It took a little work, but eventually it opened and the body of a soldier slid out. Atilio felt for a pulse in his neck, shaking her head. ‘Dammit. Roke, get over here, and bring that fiddy. You lot, get in the back.’

We did as we were told, pulling open the rear door and climbing into the darkened interior. It was a bit of a squeeze with four of us on the seat but we managed, peering through the porthole-like windows to see the gunner lugging his weapon over the plaza, a bronze tail of ammo sweeping the floor behind him. He clambered
onto the roof turret and mounted the machine gun.

‘Hey guys,’ he shouted down, offering a smile to Lucy. ‘Don’t mind me.’

‘Right,’ said Atilio as she climbed into the driver’s seat, firing up the engine. ‘Let’s get this show on the road.’ She pulled the radio handset from its socket. ‘Checkmate 5 this is Airborne 32, do you copy?’

A voice buried deep within static whistled from the speakers. I couldn’t make out what it said but the captain obviously could.

‘Status is groundbound, sir,’ she reported. ‘Something pulled us right out of the air. Airborne 14 too, now KIA. What do you need us to do?’

The voice again, barking out orders made up of numbers and code words and not much else.

‘Roger that, XO,’ Atilio said. ‘Got some civvies, I’ll drop them off with the PMCs over by Pear Street.’

She waited for confirmation then replaced the receiver, slamming the gearstick into reverse and revving hard. The powerful engine pulled the truck from the wall, the vehicle bumping as it rolled over the rat. The gears groaned as she fought to find first, then started forward across the plaza.

‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

‘We need to head to Meriton,’ Lucy interrupted. ‘The police station, it will be safe there.’

‘You kidding me?’ Atilio replied. ‘Meriton’s gone, everything up there is gone.’

‘Gone?’ Lucy asked. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean gone, not there any more. You haven’t seen
the fires?’ Atilio eased the truck over the pavement and onto the street, accelerating towards the smoke. She saw us all nodding in the rear-view mirror. ‘They took out the police stations first, hours ago. Meriton, Raymond-town, even as far north as Colette.’

‘They?’ I blurted, not quite believing what I was hearing, and even though I knew the answer I added, ‘Who?’

‘We don’t know,’ she said as the world turned to night, smoke nuzzling against the tiny windows, flowing in through the open roof. Above us the gunner coughed into his sleeve. Atilio flicked a switch and the headlights came on, doing little to cut through the confusion. ‘It all started with the prison break, but this is more than that. There are creatures out there, like animals, only not like any animal I’ve ever seen before. They’re big, they’re fast, they’re savage, and they don’t go down when you shoot them.’

I opened my mouth to try and explain but for some reason Zee rested a hand on my arm, offering a tiny shake of his head. Atilio angled the truck around a burning car. It was the one we had passed earlier. She was driving us into the city.

‘We got the call at around 0600,’ she went on. ‘Standby orders. By that time the hospitals were already filling up with cops and the emergency services had gone into meltdown. First Battalion is stationed just outside the city. We’re an anti-terrorist squad, really, ready to roll if something bad ever goes down.’

‘Don’t get much badder than this,’ the gunner added,
swinging his machine gun round to cover the road ahead.

‘You can say that again,’ Atilio said. ‘Half an hour after that we got the green light: move in. Our orders were to shoot on sight, clear the streets. And that was fine, when we thought there were only prisoners to shoot.’

Zee opened his mouth to protest, then obviously thought better of it.

The smoke peeled away from the windscreen to reveal that the road ahead had been completely blocked by what looked like a collapsed building, bricks and tiles and furniture spilled everywhere and smouldering. Atilio swore, doing a clumsy three-point turn and heading back the way we’d come.

‘Keep it sharp up there, Roke,’ she ordered. ‘This feels wrong.’

‘Yessir, ma’am,’ came his reply, muffled by the wind as the truck accelerated. Atilio hung a left at the first junction we came to, accelerating down the street before turning left again. The road here was narrower but clearer and I could see right down it into the heart of the city. Above us there was a roar as another chopper soared over the streets, disappearing towards the distant skyscrapers.

‘Lucky bastards,’ muttered the captain. ‘I hate being groundbound.’

‘Excuse me,’ Lucy asked, leaning forward. ‘But where are we going? Shouldn’t you be heading the other way, taking us to safety?’

‘Sorry, kid,’ Atilio said, her face in the mirror bearing
a genuine expression of concern. ‘We’ve got our orders and rescuing civvies ain’t part of them. We’re grateful that this is Sunday, not too many people in the city. But it’s spreading, and fast. We had reports of disturbances as far out as the estuary, and if it gets any further then we won’t be able to stem it. Like a bleeder, y’know? Got to nip the artery or you’re bang out of luck.’

‘Then where are you taking us?’ Lucy persisted, wiping the tears from her eyes.

‘Closest place I can think of as safe,’ Atilio replied. ‘Most of the Batt is broken up and sweeping the city, and the police have been moved to the outskirts to prevent panic setting in – the ones that are still alive, that is. But we’re not alone out here. Bunch of PMCs have been called in and I know for a fact they’re stationed down this way. Got a camp there, and I reckon that’s your best bet.’

‘PMCs?’ I asked.

‘Private military companies,’ Atilio explained, the truck speeding up as it thundered down the hill. ‘Back in my training days we’d have called ’em mercs – mercenaries – but we don’t use that word any more. They’re soldiers, only they don’t work for the government. They— Oh boy, hold on.’

I glanced out of the window to see that we were approaching a junction. There was less smoke here, and I could make out a café on the corner, and next to that a grocery shop. It would have looked like a perfectly normal city scene if not for the two tanks that wheeled noisily from the street to our left, the tarmac crumbling
beneath their squeaking caterpillar tracks. Atilio honked her horn and manoeuvred the truck between them, offering a salute out of the window. If anybody inside saw her they didn’t show any sign of it, the enormous machines rolling out of sight behind a kebab shop.

‘This city is gonna be dust before the day is out,’ she said once the thunder had passed. ‘So anyway, what exactly were you kids doing on the roof of St Martin’s in the first place?’

‘Hiding,’ Zee said. ‘We were out on the streets, saw what was going on. Looked like the best place to take shelter.’

‘And you just happened to be in the middle of the financial district at half-past dark on a Sunday morning?’ she asked, although I could tell by the way she looked at us in the mirror that she already knew the truth.

‘Would you believe we were sightseeing?’ Zee tried, not very convincingly.

Captain Atilio nodded. ‘Yeah, right, and this here is the Queen’s carriage and Roke up there is her footman. You a footman, Roke?’

‘If I am, I’m wearing the wrong uniform,’ he shouted down.

‘And you lot aren’t tourists, either,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen enough prison eyes in my time. Don’t look so worried; a few escaped juvies are the least of my concerns at the moment. Right now the more of you lot we see who aren’t punching through solid steel and biting off heads the better.’ She turned in her seat, glancing at my arm.
‘Though the brains’ll want to take a good look at you with that tree trunk you’ve got there.’

‘The brains?’ I asked, and for some reason found myself thinking of the wheezers and their wicked blades.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Atilio said. ‘Military intelligence have set up shop a dozen clicks away. I can’t take you there. We’ll drop you with the mercs for now, then it’s back into the fight.’

‘So you have no idea what’s going on?’ Zee asked, leaning between the seats. Atilio shook her head and let out a rueful laugh.

‘Kid, I haven’t got a clue. All I know is that there are things out there that make al-Qaeda look like fluffy bunnies, and we’ve got orders to shoot ’em dead. Until someone tells me different, I pull the trigger first and ask questions never. Welcome to life on the front line.’

I don’t know if she said any more because it suddenly felt as if the sky above me had opened up, a noise like the world ending. I didn’t know what it was until a shell casing landed on my lap, bigger than my thumb and red hot. I brushed it off, feeling more drop down, a rain of burning brass as Roke fired the cannon. I clamped my hands to my ears, feeling the truck veer wildly to the right, something bouncing off the bumper with a dull thud. Above me Roke swung the weapon round, shooting it back the way we’d come.

‘You see that?’ he yelled as Atilio steadied the vehicle. ‘Man, it was bigger than a horse!’

‘You get it?’ the captain yelled.

‘Hit it with about a dozen rounds,’ he replied. ‘Just threw itself over a roof. I think it’s still up there.’

He grunted in frustration, pulling the trigger again. I looked out the back, saw the enormous shells punching through random walls, tearing chunks from the brickwork, smashing windows into dust. Then he stopped, spitting out a couple of choice swear words.

‘It’s getting worse,’ Atilio said. ‘It’s like there’s a nest of these things somewhere.’

‘I think we may know where,’ I said. Atilio glanced at me in the mirror. I started to explain but she stopped me.

‘Save it for the XO,’ she said. ‘The mercs have set up a command centre in the Pear Street multi-storey. We’re nearly there. I’ll have a couple of them swing you over to HQ, get you out of town. They’ll want to talk to you, especially if you have the slightest clue as to what’s going on.’

‘Take the next right,’ Roke shouted down. ‘Road ahead’s jammed, use Freeman Street, then cut round the back.’

Atilio followed his directions, the car turning right and speeding down a narrow street before skidding left through a barrier and into a car park. It didn’t quite fit through the gap, sparks flying up from the sides and sounding like a finger scraping down a blackboard.

‘Whoops,’ Atilio said. ‘Glad this ain’t my car. Where the hell are these guys, anyway?’

‘Sitting up top crying to each other like little babies, most likely,’ Roke suggested with a snigger.

‘Not this lot,’ Atilio said, steering the truck carefully
up the first ramp. ‘From what I hear this crew are a bunch of cold-hearted killers, built like outhouses and with surgical enhancements to boot.’

The car bombed through the empty car park, swinging up to the next level. She glanced in the mirror for long enough to see our nervous expressions.

‘Don’t worry, these guys can be a foul-mouthed and filthy bunch but they’re usually harmless. We call this lot the Blues Brothers. You’ll get that when you see what they all wear.’

We swung up again, pressed against each other as we swerved round another bend.

‘Don’t let them give you any lip, right? They may be freelance but right now they answer to my XO, and don’t be afraid to remind them of that. Besides …’

She stopped for long enough to ease the truck up another ramp.

‘… Something tells me you’ll feel right at home with them, judging by the state of those eyes of yours.’

We bombed up the last ramp back into the blinding sunlight, and by the time her words had sunk in it was too late. The truck squealed to a halt and several hulking shapes approached, one of them pulling open my door with a dull throb of laughter. A pair of silver cat’s eyes peered into the gloom, a razor-sharp smile slicing open his face.

‘Well, well. Just look at what we’ve got here.’

Then he grabbed my arm in an iron grip I hoped I’d never feel again, ripping me from the truck into the cold, cruel glare of a dozen grinning blacksuits.