Home Planet: Apocalypse (Part 2) (18 page)

That night, we set down the shuttle at a location several miles from the Cube building—the trading center and scene of my escape. Our reconnaissance of the stark entrance lobby had shown a stepped-up security presence—more guards and another machine gun nest behind a third floor window overlooking the entrance. It would’ve been hard to see without the night vision and IR functions of the helmet visor. Laetitia used her built-in sensors for the same purpose. On returning to the shuttle, we’d flown back to a secluded location deep in the San Antonio range. There, I’d sketched out our insertion route from memory. We agreed to the plan and prepared the load-out before a final security sweep around the shuttle and some well-deserved rest. For me, that meant sleep. For Laetitia—apart from wireless charging via the shuttle’s power grid—I don’t know what she did. Reported back to Reichs, I expected.

***

I awoke late, and after getting some calories, we spent most of the day going through the plan and contingencies in fine detail. Waiting until the second night was a deliberate move to let the heat die down a little, take the edge off a shaken enemy. In the late afternoon, I had a nap ready for the nighttime insertion.

***

At 2 a.m. local time, the shuttle quietly eased onto the ice field two miles north of the Cube.

Laetitia powered down the shuttle, plunging the cargo hold into absolute darkness. After an equipment and weapons check, I activated my visor’s nightvision.

“Ready?” I said through the helmet’s headset.

“Yes,” came her reply.

The cargo door whirred to life and descended to the snow as a ramp.

“Let’s go, Laetitia.”

And we stepped into the starlit night, the glow from the three ancient skyscrapers off to the south like beacons across the icy wasteland. I scanned the featureless area around the shuttle. The whole scene looked eerie in shades of night vision green. I regarded Laetitia doing her sweep, dressed in full marine combat gear complete with assault rifle, .45 cal sidearm and a selection of grenades—the same gear as I wore myself.  She was fearsome enough without body armor. With it, she could take on an army—an army with no heavy weapons, at least. Switching to infrared, I repeated the recce and reconfirmed no threat. She closed the cargo door and we set off south toward the Cube. A snow dune hid its bottom few floors as well as those of the Sigma Tower in the center. To the left, only a single dim light remained at the largely unused Hertford Building. After a mile and a half, we reached the ridge of the snow dune and the bright, amplified light of the Cube’s lobby came into full view. Lying prone, I studied the Trade Control lobby through binoculars, searching for anything that had changed since I escaped with Cortez, Alexa and Myleene. None of the fourteen customs officer tables were manned, but conversely, the number of guards had doubled to a dozen. All had rifles. All wore the blue coveralls of inside guards, not the dirty white of outside guards. Most of them looked bored as they hung around talking and leaning against walls. One guard had his head down on a customs table, apparently asleep. Two more men manned the machine gun nest to the left of the gaping entrance. One looked attentive, the other looked asleep. I directed the binoculars at the third floor, where the newly emplaced machine gun sat. Only the top of the gunner’s head was visible behind the sandbags. There was one last thing I had to check as I redirected my scrutiny back to the Trade Control lobby. My eyes scanned over the cinder block rear wall, which sectioned off the lobby from the sled parking lot behind. And there it was, the missing block. I still couldn’t work out what it was for. Perhaps so they could keep an eye on traders’ sleds or so that traders could identify them for guard inspection.

“Confirm no change from yesterday night,” I said.

“Yes, I concur,” said Laetitia, her voice loud and clear in my helmet headset.

“Right, let’s move.”

We crossed the ice field without incident, making our way toward the Cube. Scanning the way ahead for threats, we rounded the Cube and entered the dark, deserted sled park backing onto the lobby. A shaft of light cut through the freezing air via the missing cinder block in the center of the rear wall. Along with the starlight outside, it was enough for us to clearly navigate the nine sleds, some empty, some containing lignite, others still covered with tarps. Somewhere to the right, dogs howled as if sensing our ingress.

“Damn dogs,” I heard one of the guards grumble.

“Yeah, blame the traders. Them southern boys don’t feed their huskies enough. Makes ‘em grouchy.”

“Makes me grouchy,” replied the first guy.

The barking and howling died down and we neared the cinder block wall. Standing back from the missing block, I crouched down and caught sight of my target. Now came the critical moment as I checked the silencer on my assault rifle, selected single shot and raised the stock to my shoulder. The assault rifle would detect the noise suppressor and automatically reduce the muzzle velocity. Combined, it would deaden the sound to a few decibels. Above the wide entrance were the ragged remnants of a concrete wall decorated with a covering of lichen and rusted rebar stumps. An electrical cable ran to a junction box from the right to halfway along this strip of concrete between the ceiling and the entrance. Cables snaked their way across the ceiling from the junction box to half a dozen lights hanging from the ceiling. Electrical standards had really gone downhill.

“Ready to take the shot,” I whispered.

Laetitia sent her acknowledgement via a HUD text.

The guards were an untalkative bunch, so I waited for some cover sound, regulating my breathing, applying pressure on the trigger. Then a guard on the right cleared his throat, pushed off the wall and started shuffling over toward the machine gunner.

“Hey Ro...”

I didn’t hear the rest as I squeezed the trigger and felt the recoil as the round powered toward the junction box. Instantly, came a
crack
as the bullet smashed the junction box, plunging the lobby into darkness.

“What the hell happened?” came an annoyed sounding voice.

“Damn electricians! Useless bunch of assholes,” said another from the left.

“Lights are still on over at Sigma, so can’t be a brownout,” a man said from near the entrance.

“I’ll go get Dylan,” said a young guard, who disappeared into the side door.

“Time to move,” I texted to Laetitia.

We ghost-walked around the front to the lobby. The guards weren’t panicking—they must’ve had electrical failures before. Now came the vital moment as we slipped over the threshold and past the machine gun nest on the left.

The shuffling of feet and the odd conversation masked our ingress and saved the guards’ lives. The side door was on the left-hand wall, near the front. I navigated between a pair of tables and chairs and reached the set of rusty steel doors, Laetitia right behind. Reaching for the handle, I heard footsteps on the other side of the door. I turned around and hand-signaled to Laetitia. We held ourselves flush against the wall moments before the young guard pushed through the squeaking doors.

“Dylan’s not around. Who else can help?” he said from less than six feet to my right, his breathing heavy as if he’d been hurrying.

I breathed shallowly, quietly, ready to act should he detect me.

“Go get a flashlight, I’ll have a look myself,” said a gruff-sounding older man.

“Okay,” replied the young guy, before turning around and returning though the double doors.

I reached out and caught the door before it slammed shut. The corridor on the other side was poorly lit so no one seemed to notice. We slipped out of the lobby and into the corridor. Laetitia shot out the light, thirty feet away, taking away the scant glow. We found the stairwell and went down seven levels to the market, through the dim and deserted labyrinth of corridors. The dark corner of the market and the removable panel to the ice tunnel beckoned across the rows of empty market stalls. We’d used stealth and the shadows to avoid contact so far, but suddenly, from nowhere an old woman appeared.

I raised my gun reflexively, then relaxed as the tiny, shriveled creature dropped her bucket and held up her hands in fright.

“Please don’t,” she said.

“It’s okay,” I whispered. “We’re on your side. Please don’t mention you saw us.”

She nodded frantically, picked up her bucket and scurried off.

We must’ve looked very alien to her and there were no guarantees she wouldn’t report us. But what other choice was there?

Then I thought of something. A way she could be useful.

I caught up with her.

“Please, I don’t mean you harm, I just want to ask you a question. After this, we’ll leave you be.”

She stopped and turned, still frightened but straightening up she cleared her throat.

“What is your question, Outlander?” she said in a squeaky voice.

I wondered if she knew me as
The Outlander
or just
an
outlander, not that it mattered.

“What time are the Games tomorrow?”

“Well, tomorrow’s Friday, so they’ll be on as usual at 8 a.m.”

“Thank you. And remember, you didn’t see us.”

She nodded and we slipped into the darkness and to the removable wall panel and the ice tunnel behind it.

We retraced the steps of my escape two nights before, passing down the emergency stairwell and the boarded off door that I’d busted through. No one had bothered fixing it. The overflow cells in the former underground parking lot were as dank and dark and deserted as before. Up ahead a
thwack
preceded a series of piercing screams accompanied by laughter and shouts from two men—presumably guards. My heart told me to haul ass over there and waste the two torturing bastards, but my head told me to stay. This stuff had been going on for a long time and it was my mission to stop it. Intervening now would jeopardize it, so I had to restrain my instincts. I found a cell, checking there was no padlock on the chain link door and went inside. Laetitia followed and we sat down beside one another, backs against the wall in our marine battledress. The visceral cries continued.

“What is that screaming?” said Laetitia, a note of confusion in her voice.

Perhaps she’d never encountered torture before.

“This is a prison. They’re torturing someone. It’s what they do here.”

“Oh. To what end?”

“Knowing the way Valdus runs things, probably just for fun.”

I tried to shut out the noise, but my mind kept focusing on it. It disturbed me deeply, but we couldn’t give away our presence. Thankfully, the guards must’ve gotten bored because after five minutes it stopped. It only made me more determined to take out the lot of them. Although I took no pleasure in killing, these were Valdus’s henchmen and this was war—anyone armed was fair game.

I settled down on the floor, with Laetitia keeping watch on low-power mode. Away from the shuttle’s power grid, her charge was limited and something told me tomorrow would be a busy day. Sleep came easily with the security my android ally brought. That night, Juliet visited my dreams once again. This time her words unlocked something from a hidden corner of my mind.

***

One second I was with Juliet, sipping a cold beer next to the pool in Hawaii, next I heard a different woman’s voice.

“Mr. Luker, it’s 7 a.m.,” said Laetitia quietly through the headset, tapping on the helmet which I still wore.

My eyes parted.

“Thanks. Give me a second, please.”

I felt drowsy and tried to recall what Juliet and I had discussed in the dream. If I didn’t get it now it’d be lost. And then it came. As we’d sat at the table on the patio of her hotel in Hawaii—a place I’d only ever seen in real life on a display—she’d detailed why she was there. It was business of course—I knew that—but the
specific
purpose of her trip was related to the
Forever World
. Then her words crossed the barrier of time and surfaced in my mind.

“Branch facility... I’m here to set up a branch facility.”

As drowsiness receded, I began to wonder if it was all my imagination or if I’d ever actually heard her say this when she video called me from Hawaii many lifetimes ago. Dreams were weird like that—a mish-mash of hopes and fears mixed into a cocktail of memories.

I suppressed those thoughts and sat up, reaching for a high-energy ration bar and the water tube connected to the pouch on my back. I finished off a second bar, and Laetitia and I made our final plans. Within the next two hours our futures and those of everyone in this Godforsaken city would be redefined. That was if we succeeded. If we didn’t then our fate didn’t bear thinking about. One thing was for sure—like Laetitia, if it came to it, they would not take me alive.

At 8:10 a.m. we left the cell. The Games would already be underway, the first of the condemned down in the pit fighting for their lives. We followed the old concrete wall on the left, passing the empty cells on the right until reaching the active area of the prison. Rifles raised, I led the way. Despite Laetitia’s superhuman reflexes and armor, she’d not been here before and I knew where I was going. The long walkway with cells on either side was lit but gloomy. We advanced down toward the far end, passing several prisoners. One asked who we were. We just ignored him and kept going. Halfway to the end, the sound of guards walking and chatting announced their impending arrival. As they rounded the corner fifty feet away, I shot one in the forehead with Laetitia shooting the other guy. They fell forward like ragdolls and we closed the distance in seconds to see another guard sleeping at the entry desk. Laetitia wasted him and we took a left into the stairwell, which led up to the fifth floor. We heard them from two floors above—a whole group of guards heading our way. We retreated to the corner on the landing, keeping ears out for enemy approaching from below. Six guards, their rifles slung, arrived just feet from us. With wide eyes and panic-stricken faces, they reached for their weapons as we dispatched them with silenced three-round bursts. They had no time to cry out, keeping our presence concealed. Sooner or later, someone would find the trail of bodies, but by then I hoped it’d all be over. For Valdus, not us. We stepped over the bodies and ascended the remaining flights of dingy crumbling stairs with missing handrails. They brought us to a set of rotting double doors.