The Fall: Crimson Worlds IX (20 page)

The three of them tried to push down the clogged street, past a stream of people unaware of the mob’s focus.  “Let’s get to the precinct building.  It’s not far.”  There was desperation in his voice as he pushed his way forward.

He could hear the mob behind him, chasing, shouting to those closer to him.  He felt a punch.  Then another.  The people in the streets right around them were turning angry, feral, becoming part of the bloodthirsty crowd.

There was a sharp pain in his ribs.  Someone had hit him with something, a stick or a rod of some kind.  He lost his breath, but he kept pushing forward, desperately trying to escape.

He felt hands grabbing at him, trying to hold him back, but he struggled free and kept going.  He saw one of his men go down under the surging mass of people and, a few seconds later, the other.  He still drove himself forward, through the pain and fear.  He was an animal now, driven by pure instinct, trying to escape any way he could.  He pulled out the pistol and started firing, shooting at anyone near him.

A roar rose from the crowd, a merciless sound of pure hatred, as they closed on him from all sides.  He fired as quickly as he could.  He’d hit five, six, maybe seven of the enraged citizens, but then he felt arms grabbing him from behind.

His body fell hard, slammed into the pavement, and he could feel the pain from dozens of blows.  He was surrounded, and the crowd was kicking at him and throwing things, at least a dozen of them right around him, howling for blood.

He tried to roll over, to protect himself anyway he could, but he couldn’t move.  He coughed, and a huge glob of blood sprayed out of his mouth.  The pain was unbearable, and he screamed in agony and rage.  He tried to crawl free, but then he just stopped.  Everything was quiet now, and the pain was gone.  The light became dimmer, and he felt himself fading slowly, until the darkness took him.

Axe waded through the waist-high water, moving as quickly as he could through the ancient, crumbling tunnel.  The stolen flashlight was down to the last of its power, shining a dim light that was only useful for about a meter in front of him.  “I think we’re almost to the Queens side.  My people are waiting there.”

The girl followed right behind him.  She’d been skittish at first, afraid to get too close to him.  But he’d taken her to the kitchen and helped her find some food that hadn’t spoiled.  She was a little waif of a girl, but she’d have given Tank a run for his money packing away the food.  He had no idea how long she’d been locked up with nothing to eat, but he knew he wanted to kill whoever had left her there, whoever did what had been done to her.

She’d still shied away from him in the apartment, but when they got down into the streets she recoiled at the surging, violent masses and followed along.  He told her she could come with him, but he didn’t try to convince her.  She didn’t answer him, but she trailed behind, staying a few meters back.  Now, in the darkness of the flooded, rat-infested tunnels, she was right on his heels.

Axe pushed forward, trying not to think about the century or more of filth in the reeking, black water.  He could feel the grade of the tunnel rising, and the water level began to drop off.  He’d taken a tunnel into the Protected Zone, and he already felt like he’d walked as far as he had before.  He was beginning to get worried he’d taken a wrong turn when he finally saw a faint glow farther ahead.  He hurried his pace, anxious to get out into the sunlight.

He walked slowly up toward the light, the water dropping away as the tunnel rose.  The entrance was partially covered by a cave in, but there was enough of an opening to squeeze through.  He looked around, realizing he had come out through a different tunnel than the one he’d taken in.  He climbed up and onto a crumbling concrete platform, turning around and offering his hand to Ellie.  She shied away for a second, but then she reached up and took hold, letting him pull her up and into the light.

He turned and looked across the river at the kilometer-high towers of the Protected Zone, getting his bearings.  He knew immediately he was too far south.  His men were waiting about half a kilometer from where he was standing.

“This way,” he said, pointing north.  “If you want to come with me and my people, we need to walk this way for a few minutes.”  He paused, trying to gauge her reaction.  “If you want to go off on your own, I won’t stop you, but you’ll be safer with us.”  He knew the girl didn’t stand a chance by herself, but he was worried if he pushed her too hard she’d run.  He still couldn’t understand why he cared so much, but he did.  He felt rage about the way she’d been treated, and just thinking about it infuriated him.  He’d seen plenty of people brutalized, indeed he’d done more than a few terrible things himself - but there was something about Ellie, something that made him want to protect her.

“I will go with you.”  Her voice was soft, high-pitched with a gentle sadness to it.  It was the first time she’d spoken to him.

He smiled, adjusting the heavy bag slung over his shoulder.  “Then let’s go.”  He looked up to the north and then east, through the ancient ruins of Queens to the deserted lands beyond.  “It’s time to leave this place.”

“Attention all units.  Attention all units.  Code Orange.”  The warning was issued directly from the fleetcom circuit, and it blasted out of every com unit on Columbia, overriding all other messages.  Marines, Janissaries, and Columbian soldiers all got the word at once.  The enemy had gone nuclear.

General Gilson had expected the move and, after the Janissaries spearheaded the big breakthrough, she’d ordered all units into extended order, deployed to minimize their vulnerability to enhanced weapons.  The enemy was losing the battle for Columbia, and she knew they wouldn’t go down without causing as much damage as they could.  They’d fought to the death everywhere else, and she didn’t expect things to be different on Columbia.

She’d moved forward from her HQ, intent on getting a close look at what was going on.  Now she was standing on the front lines, looking out from a hill Heath’s Marines had just taken.  The fight had been a vicious one, with heavy losses on both sides, but Major Callahan’s battered 1st Battalion had won the victory.  Neither Heath nor Callahan were there to savor the triumph.  The major had been seriously wounded in the initial breakthrough.  He’d been taken to an aid station, and later evac’d to the hospital ship Boyer.

General Heath had put himself at the head of his dwindling forces and charged through the breech, driving the enemy into the rugged terrain west of the capital.  He’d been killed in the final stages of the advance, as his Marines were assaulting the last of the enemy strongpoints.  He’d died a hero, on the vanguard of the advance, surrounded by his Marines.

Gilson felt the loss keenly.  Heath had been her protégé, much as Cain had been to Holm.  He’d served under her for years, and she’d seen his career advance with tremendous pride.  She knew he’d only done what he had to do.  Marines didn’t lead from behind, and casualties were always high, even among senior officers.  Heath’s name would be added to the considerable roster of Marine generals killed in action.  It was a list of heroes, and Rod Heath would join such illustrious company as Elias Holm and Darius Jax.

Gilson felt sick when she first got the word, but it quickly passed, becoming almost like a fact she hadn’t considered yet.  It was a coldness borne of necessity, of the need to stay strong in the face of any losses.  It made her a good commander, she knew that much.  But she wasn’t all that crazy about herself as a human being.  What does it say about someone, she thought, when you can give a friend half a minute of grief and then put him out of your mind, like he’d never existed?

She ducked down below the crest of the hill, heading for a ragged line of trenches Callahan’s people had taken before assaulting the hill itself.  She knew she’d poked her nose out farther than she should have, and she was lucky she hadn’t joined that list of dead generals herself.

She crouched to keep herself low, and she ran, diving headfirst into the trench.  Code Orange alerts were serious, and they rarely gave much lead time.  Her landing was less graceful than befitted her position, but at least she’d gotten into cover in time.  Marine fighting suits were tough.  With a little help from the terrain, they could protect their wearer even from nearby nuclear explosions.  But no armor was going to save a slow Marine who was caught out on open ground too close to a detonation.

She pulled herself partially up, looking around the trench.  The rest of Callahan’s Marines were sitting prone, heads ducked and waiting for the nuclear blasts or the all clear.  She was aware of the casualties suffered by the entire expeditionary force, but she was still shocked to see how few remained from two full battalions.  Numbers on a screen were one thing; actually seeing the men and women – and the massive gaps in their ranks – was another.  Callahan’s people were part of Heath’s vanguard, and they’d paid a high price for that honor.

“General Gilson?”

The voice was on her com, but the speaker was crawling up right beside her.  She glanced up at her projection, but there was no ID displayed.  One look at the man’s antique armor told her why.

“Lieutenant Paine?”  She’d almost forgotten that she’d allowed the two Columbian officers hook up with Callahan’s bunch.

“Yes, sir.”

“What are you still doing this far forward?”  She was surprised to find the envoy from General Tyler in a trench along the very edge of the front line.

“This is where the fight is, General.”  It could have been a flippant remark, but it wasn’t.  Paine was deadly serious.

“Where is Lieutenant White?”  She hadn’t expected the two envoys to dive headfirst into the fighting when she’d allowed them to hook up with Callahan’s people.

“He’s down the trench a ways.”  Paine gestured vaguely off to her right.  “Have you heard anything from our people to the south, General?”

She was just about to tell him that Tyler’s army was advancing north, supporting Major Mandrake’s Marine battalion, but she was interrupted by a bright flash.  Her visor blacked out automatically, and an instant later the sound and shockwave hit. 

The ground shook like an earthquake, and sections of trench caved in, piles of rock and dirt sliding down like small avalanches.  Structural supports were shattered like twigs, and dugouts all along the line collapsed.  A few Marines were buried, but they managed to climb out from under the mounds of debris.  Men and women ducked away from collapsed sections of trench, seeking better protection from the flying debris and the blasts of radiation they couldn’t see but knew were there.

Another flash, more distant this time.  Then another.  The nukes were coming in.

“Issue the order.”  Sarah Linden was sitting outside the isolation chamber, watching Anderson-45 through the clear hyper-polycarbonate.  He was sitting quietly, wearing only a set of surgical scrubs.  There was a Marine standing next to him, fully clad in powered armor.  There was padding affixed to his fighting suit, heavy wadding fastened all across the chest and torso.

“Issuing order now, Colonel.”  Alicia pressed a button on her console.  Inside the chamber, the AI spoke, issuing a command to the sitting Anderson-45.  It had taken a number of failed attempts to get the procedure down, and after every failure, Sarah had tirelessly reworked the formula.  But now she had it figured out.  She couldn’t stop Anderson-45 from following an order, but she could issue one herself.

They were both expecting what happened, but they were still surprised at the ferocity with which Anderson-45 leapt up from his seat and ran toward the Marine, grabbing a chair as he did and swinging it into the armored form as hard as he could.  He ducked to the side, as if he was expecting a return blow.  He worked around the back of the Marine, grabbing a piece of the shattered chair and jabbing it at his adversary.

Sarah watched for a second in stunned silence then she yelled, “Issue the stand down order.”

Alicia pressed a button on the console, and the AI’s voice filled the room again.  “Cease combat.  Stand down.”

Anderson-45 dropped the chair leg and stood at attention, making no hostile move toward the Marine standing less than a meter away.

“Anderson, are you OK?”  Sarah leaned over and spoke softly into the microphone.

“Yes, Dr. Linden.  I am fine.”  The Shadow Legion soldier stood where he was, making no move to sit down or renew his attack on the Marine.

She flipped off the microphone.  “You see, Alicia.  Right there.”  She was pointing to Anderson-45’s total body scan.  “I was right.  It piggybacks on the immune system, triggering an automated response, much like the creation of antibodies.  Except instead of fighting invading organisms, it suppresses the subject’s ability to resist the command.”  She turned toward her assistant.  “It’s like turning off free will and replacing it with a compulsion to obey.”

Her eyes moved up to the brainscan.  “It’s all done through involuntary systems.  The subject never has any control, not even a conscious knowledge of the effect.  He just obeys, without even knowing why.”

“You were right, Colonel.  We should be able to customize a drug to counteract it.  Like an immunosuppressant, but targeted at this specific effect.  It would block the compulsion, leaving the subject to decide how to respond.  They could still obey, but they would have to choose to do so.”  She sighed and looked at Sarah.  “Considering their level of discipline, it doesn’t seem likely they’d simply begin disobeying orders, even if they had the ability to do so.”

Sarah took a deep breath.  Alicia was right.  “They might ignore suicidal orders or something of an extremely brutal nature, much like a Marine would.”  She looked down at the table.  The Marines were extremely disciplined.  An order would have to be highly immoral for most of them to disobey.  But the Corps had an esprit de corps the Shadow Legions couldn’t match.  Perhaps the clone soldiers would be more likely to rebel against authority if their conditioning was neutralized.  It was worth a try, at least.

“Let’s move forward along this line.  If we can punch in our parameters, the medical AI should be able to come up with a formula in a few hours.”  She turned and looked back into the room.  Anderson-45 was still standing in place.  He’d made no effort to sit or make himself comfortable.  Sarah shook her head.  The clones had no experience at all exercising free will.  If she suddenly gave it to them, the results might be unpredictable.

She turned toward Alicia.  “Synthesizing the drug is the least of our worries.”

Her assistant looked at her with a quizzical look.

“Even if it works, how do we administer it to thousands of clones buttoned up in armor all across a battlefield?”  She sighed.  She knew she could beat this problem and help Stark’s clones claim their free will as sentient beings.  But she was starting to realize it wasn’t going to help win the war.

She could treat any prisoners who were captured, but she couldn’t think of any way to “weaponize” a cure and use it to disable the enemy in the field.  And since, the Shadow Legions didn’t surrender, that could mean all her work was for nothing.

Tara Rourke sat at her workstation, staring at the strange memo on her screen.  There was no sender listed, and the message was brief, just six words.  The ides of March are come.

Her eyes were fixed on the message, and she was unable to turn away.  It felt like a bomb had exploded in her head.  She wanted to scream, but she sat there silently, under the control of some strange compulsion.  She didn’t understand, but she couldn’t make herself cry for help.  Her head pounded, and she felt like she was losing herself, her consciousness slipping away.

She felt her body stand up, but she wasn’t controlling it.  She tried to force herself to sit, but she couldn’t.  Her body turned and walked slowly toward the hatch.  “I will be back in a few minutes.  Greaves, you’re in charge while I’m gone.”  She didn’t know where the words had come from.

She could hear her own voice, but she wasn’t controlling it.  She could see the main hatch ahead of her, but she had no idea what was happening.  She felt waves of emotion – anger, fear, frustration.  She couldn’t make her body stop moving.  She couldn’t do anything but watch helplessly as something she couldn’t see or feel controlled her.

She walked into the corridor and down to the bank of lifts.  She waved her hand over the panel, and one of the doors opened.  She stepped inside and said, “Level 9.”

What was going on, she wondered helplessly, what am I doing?  Her quarters were on level 9.  Why was she going to her quarters?

She walked slowly down the corridor, her head nodding greetings to crew members as they passed each other.  She tried to shout out to them, to plea for their help, but she was locked away, unable to control anything.  She watched helplessly as her body walked to her quarters.  Her palm pressed against the ID pad, and the door slid open.  She could feel the cool glass of the pad on her hand, but she couldn’t control her movements.

Her body walked inside and over to a small bank of drawers.  She opened the bottom one and reached to the back, pulling out a small box.  She recognized it immediately.  She’d brought it back from her last leave, almost four years before.  She hadn’t touched it since, hadn’t even thought about it, and now she realized she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten it.  She thought about it, and as she did, she realized she had almost no memories of that leave.  It was all a blur.  She remembered arriving on Armstrong, but the next thing she could picture was reporting back for duty two weeks later. 

Her hand reached inside the box, pulling out something cold and hard.  A small pistol.  Her consciousness struggled, trying desperately to regain control of her body, but to no avail.  Her hand slipped into her uniform’s utility pocket, dropping the gun gently inside.

She turned again and walked toward the door and out into the hallway.  She was screaming inside, trying to break out of the strange prison in her mind, but whatever was controlling her was too strong, and all her efforts were in vain.

She saw the bank of lifts ahead, and she felt herself touch the plate again and slip inside one of the cars.  “Level 3,” she heard herself say.

What is going on?  Her thoughts were racing, frantically trying to figure out what was happening to her.  Questions swirled in her mind.  Why can’t I remember that leave?  Where am I going?  How did I get this pistol?