Provenance I - Flee The Bonds (19 page)

Three minutes passed before the tram’s telltale lights appeared. Steve vaulted the wall, and crossed the tracks to the stop. While the tram squealed to a halt, he glanced up to the footbridge. Unmasked beneath the glow of a suspended lamp, a man in a long black coat leant towards the handrail, his mouth obscured by his left wrist. Steve boarded the tram and sat in a window seat.

As the tram passed under the footbridge, he twisted around and looked up. The man and woman in long black coats looked down.
What do SIS want?

* * * *
 

Round wall lights struggled against the bleakness of the apartment block’s concrete stairwell. It smelt like the train cabin, only without the lavender overtones. Gerhard Kalckburg lived on the third floor.

Steve stopped outside
Wohnung
15, and knocked twice.

The door opened and Gerhard’s lumberjack body filled the unlit doorway. A moment elapsed before the rigidity fell from his square shoulders.

Gerhard stepped to one side and a cordial smile spread across the lump of a jaw. ‘Please, come in.’ He poked his head out before closing the door.

Steve raised his left wrist. ‘It’s okay, I’m off net.’ He’d concluded that SIS had hoped he’d lead them to Gerhard. They were both on borrowed time.

A harsh effeminate voice drilled Steve’s ears, ‘
Wer ist es
?’

Gerhard leant into a doorway. ‘
Ein Freund, werden wir in die Küche gehen
.’

A burst of recorded laughter drowned any response.

From the hallway, Gerhard led Steve into a cramped kitchen that smelt of sour cooking fat. A bare bulb hung over a round wooden table and two chairs. He gestured to a chair. ‘
Bitte
. Coffee?’

‘Thanks.’

Steve sat down and spoke to the broad back of a brown check shirt. Gerhard’s tousle of chestnut hair needed a cut and his enforced confinement had settled on his waist. ‘How have you been?’

‘It has not been easy for Maria.’

‘No, I can imagine.’

Gerhard left the gurgling coffee pot and plonked down opposite. ‘Can you?’

Steve’s green eyes queried small pewter ones. ‘More than you know, much more.’

Gerhard’s eyes conveyed the familiar resignation, and something else, something disconcerting. ‘I know now we have been fools, the Council used us. They are only interested in TYPEs.’

Not surprisingly, Gerhard’s resentment had fermented into bitterness. The coffee machine beeped.

Gerhard stood up, took two striped mugs off an open shelf, and placed them on the table. ‘We cannot live this life, we must do something.’

‘I’m not sure what you have in mind, but whatever it is, it’s probably too late.’

Gerhard placed the coffee jug on the table. His eyes locked with Steve’s. ‘Does Colossus come sooner?’

Before Steve could reply, Gerhard’s wife shuffled in wearing a floral housecoat and matching slip-ons. Unlike Gerhard, Maria had brushed her hair today. Her emaciated face told its own depressing story through the blemishes and flushed apples of her high cheekbones. Alcohol had aged her well beyond her twenty-nine years. The empty spirit bottle clattered onto the worktop as Maria attempted to focus her glazed blue eyes on Steve.

‘
Wer ist das? Er sieht aus wie Kontinuität
.’

Gerhard took hold of the bottle. ‘
Ich habe dir gesagt, er ist ein Freund aus England. Gehst du ins Bett
?’

Maria relinquished the bottle and her wavering body leant forward. The rot of stale alcohol preceded her words. ‘You are CONSEC?’ Her bleary scowl lurched back to Gerhard. ‘
Du bist ein Narr, muss er gehen.
’

Gerhard’s embarrassment manifested into a smile. ‘Steve is not going to leave; he is going to have a cup of coffee.’

Maria returned her scorn to Steve. ‘
Wir haben in der Stille zu lange gelitten
.’

Gerhard laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘Steve is an Advocate, his German is
perfekt
. He is also a friend.’

Maria recoiled, her bloodshot eyes fixed on Steve. ‘Advocate?’

Steve attempted a smile. ‘Not anymore.’

‘Why do you come here?’

‘I came to ask Gerhard for help.’

‘Oh,
you
need help. We have no help for you.’

‘Maria!’

Her startled expression whirled to face Gerhard’s admonishment. ‘If Steve and Jason did not help us, I would be dead and you would be . . .’ Gerhard smiled, put his arm around her shoulder, and kissed her head. ‘
Jetzt ins Bett. Ich liebe dich.
’

Maria shuffled away. Once a senior CONSEC administrator, she’d discovered the pain of Continuity expulsion. If SIS found them, she’d discover just how much of that pain she could tolerate.

Gerhard sagged down and poured the coffee, ‘I am sorry. Maria drinks to forget, but it makes her remember also.’

‘I did warn you. Now you see the world for what it is.’

Gerhard nudged the mug towards Steve. ‘What is going to happen?’

Steve picked up the mug. ‘It’s only rumours, and I don’t want to say anything until I have proof.’

‘It is the plant, yes?’

‘I need to get inside.’

‘That will not be easy.’

Steve had drunk half his coffee before Gerhard spoke again.

‘There are two possible entry points. One is to climb inside the cooling pipe to the transformer vault.’

Steve’s stomach stirred the gravy-like coffee, ‘And the other?’

‘We do not have enough explosive for that.’

‘Why isn’t the cooling pipe guarded?’

‘There is no need. Steam purges the vent every twenty minutes.’

Steve gave Gerhard a sideways glance. ‘How long does it take to climb?’

‘I do not know, but I think less than twenty minutes.’

‘Could we survive the steam?’

‘No.’

‘Can you draw a plan for me?’

‘I am coming with you.’

Steve put down his mug. ‘No, I only need the plan.’

‘But I must come with you. If there is proof in the plant I can help you find it.’

‘Maria needs your help. She’s close to the edge.’

Gerhard’s face fractured. ‘It is because of Maria I must go. You are right, she is close to the edge, she has lost hope. Please, let me help.’

Steve stared into pleading eyes. ‘Okay.’ He suspected Maria wasn’t the only one who’d slipped over the edge.

05:49 MON 30:10:2119

Black Zone, Lanztenstein, Austria, Sector 2

Gerhard placed a mug next to Steve’s plate. ‘I have made tea this morning, with milk.’

‘Thanks. Did you contact your friend with the boat?’

‘Yes. He will take us to the
Wasenbruck
lock.’

Steve nodded. SIS would have uploaded his description to every checkpoint and transport station in Lanztenstein. His IMK could mask his biofield, but not his face.

As they readied themselves in the hallway, Steve noticed Gerhard slip an envelope into the pocket of Maria’s tatty brown coat. When his thoughts strayed to Penny, he wrenched them back.

Gerhard closed the door to the apartment at 07:10.

* * * *
 

As the old sightseeing boat passed out of the shadow of a bridge, Steve caught sight of bright red graffiti on the outer transverse beam, ‘INSPRINC HAPTBANDUN’.

He pointed. ‘What does that mean?’

Gerhard looked out. ‘
Insprinc haptbandun
, flee the bonds.’

Steve fixed his eyes on Gerhard, ‘What does it
mean
?’

‘It is ancient German, the first
Merseburg
Charm. I do not know all the words.’ Gerhard continue to stare at the condensation streaked windows.

Steve grabbed his wrist. ‘It has to do with what Maria said last night doesn’t it?
Wir haben in der Stille zu lange gelitten
,
we have suffered too long in silence.’

Gerhard’s nose wrinkled. ‘I do not understand.’

Steve released his grip. ‘I think you do.’
You’ve joined the Resistance.

The boat entered the lock fifteen minutes later. Steve followed Gerhard and jumped onto the top of the chamber wall. They crossed the second chamber via a metal gantry and made their way up onto the concrete causeway that spanned the eddying brown water.

From the tree-lined bank, they followed the riverside cycle track. In the distance, another lock stretched across the not so blue Danube and four mountainous pylons rose above the forest. A matching row marked the far bank, connected by EHV cables high above the river. That’s where they’d cross. The EMF interference wouldn’t mask them completely, but it would help.

10:10.

Once under the cables, Steve turned into the undergrowth and crawled to the water’s edge with a pair of binoculars. To his left, the lock and weir straddled the river. His gaze traversed right, passing along the sloping riverbank and the sun-lit concrete wall that enclosed MP 14. The traversing stopped, his uneasiness narrowing in on the doglegged exhaust vent.

Back under cover, Steve pulled on his full-face protector suit and positioned the rigid nose and bulbous eye covers. As he fastened the lightweight helmet, he glanced across. Gerhard responded with a solemn nod; the bug-eyed men were ready.

Holding their inflated ruckalls to their chests, they walked into the fast flowing river. When it swirled around their waists, they pushed off.

The Danube’s grungy water splashed Steve’s face. To his left Gerhard’s lumpy jaw rested on his ruckall, he too had his mouth clamped shut. They had to work hard against the current and it took ten minutes to cross the medial axis. They’d passed from Lower Austria to Upper Austria, Black Zone to Red Zone.

11:17 MON 30:10:2119

MP
14, Neuhame, Austria, Sector 2

Steve worked his way along the sloping riverbank to the galvanised tube that snaked up into MP 14’s towering concrete wall.

Leaving Gerhard up on the bank, he skidded halfway down the tufted grass to the end of the exhaust vent and the triangle of sterile mud that fanned out in front of it. He unclipped the ultrasonic cutter from his belt and began slicing through the mesh cover.

With only a few centimetres left to cut, a growing rumble rattled the mesh.

Steve’s combat boots compressed the loamy soil as adrenalin fuelled legs propelled his body up the slope. He twisted onto his side and watched a jet of steam blast from the tube in a rasping hiss. Super-heated clouds billowed down the sterile earth and drifted out across the brown ripples.

When the jet of steam had dwindled to a wispy funnel, Steve scrambled to his feet. Down at the water’s edge, the Danube lapped over a half-metre circle of rusty lattice. ‘Let’s go.’

11:39.

Steve slid up into the tube’s dark and humid miasma. His helmet lamp reacted, its narrow beam diffusing in the muggy haze. He pulled and pushed up the inclined tube, his gloves and boots slipping on its smooth circular ribs. Behind him, Gerhard’s exertions echoed in the tinny confines.

As the tube levelled out, the lamp’s beam forced back the darkness. Condensation replaced the smothering humidity and rivulets crept down the polished tubular walls into inky pools. Steve dragged his squelching body through the tepid water and over the protruding ribs, his twitching nose reacting to the astringent odour that permeated the dank air.

After two further push and pulls, his helmet lamp reflected off glistening metal. They’d arrived at the chimney.

The ascent was easier and when the crown of Steve’s helmet touched the tube, he twisted onto his back. Twelve movements later, his lamp flashed across the oval access panel and its two locking bars. He lowered his chin and raised his left arm. 11:49.

Holding the furthest bar with his left hand, he positioned the cutter with his right and looked away. The mirrored tube burst into dazzling light.

A ping resonated and his left arm stiffened under the load. He repeated the process and eased himself under the metal cover.

It wouldn’t budge.

He lowered balled hands, forced his elbows down onto the unforgiving metal and punched up. The tube boomed and pain lanced down his arms. The unyielding panel stared back. A tingling paralysis spread up into his aching shoulders and crept towards his pounding chest. He glanced at his MPS, 11:54. Penny would be breaking for lunch soon.

Reaching behind, he unlocked one of the ceramica pockets, held it up against the access panel, and squeezed.

With the elliptical ring complete, he scrambled back towards Gerhard, his hand trailing the yellow filament. The fizzle amplified to a popping crackle and ambient orange flared to white as the thermite charge’s exothermic colloids reacted.

A metallic clang reverberated throughout the tube. Steve flung his head back, smoke and steam spiralled up towards the oval of light.

The circular metal walls began to rumble. ‘Move!’

Steve grabbed the opening’s blackened edges and launched himself out, his gloved hands detecting the tube’s ominous vibration.

Gerhard fell in a heap next to him. Above their heads the rumbling accelerated to a roar and a four-metre jet of steam erupted in a sibilant scream. Boiling water spluttered around the opening before rolling down the tube and dripping onto the polished concrete floor. Steve raised his left arm. 12:02.

12:07 MON 30:10:2119

MP 14, Neuhame, Austria, Sector 2

Steve panned the vast transformer vault. Sturdy concrete pillars ran the centre line and divided the fifty-metre roof span. Beyond the pillars, a row of six monumental power distribution transformers hummed, each encased in a matt-grey box the size of a house. Four jumbo fans perforated both sides of their casings, and on top, towering into the roof void, their bus ducts crackled and popped. He raised his head, lines of strip-lights reflected in the corrugated cooling pipes. ‘Let’s replace the cover.’

They removed a fire hose from the wall, coiled it around the tube, and tied it off. Steve stared at the wound hose, ‘Why do you think the access panel was welded shut?’

Gerhard shrugged. ‘Maybe they had a problem.’

‘Or they were expecting us.’
SIS don’t want anyone here.