The Darwin Elevator (39 page)

“What’s Neil’s angle?”

Alex paused. “What do you mean?”

“Why,” Russell said with a sigh, “did he fight you? Couldn’t he have just turned your climbers around from the start? Avoided the whole thing in the first place?”

Another pause. He must not have considered that. Then Alex said, “I have to assume he wanted to cause casualties, not avoid them. One thing’s for sure: He’s got something worth killing for hidden in that station.”

Russell tried to work through the ramifications. He felt a headache coming on. “Where do I come in?”

“We need reinforcements, supplies. My men don’t have the numbers or the training for something like this.”

“You’re going to try again?”

“Hell yes,” Alex said. “Platz isn’t just a former councilman now; he’s a cold-blooded murderer. The stupid old sod has given me the excuse I need to shut him down, permanently.”

“Us,” Russell said. “Given
us
the excuse.”

“Right. Of course.”

Russell turned his chair to look out the dirty window at the Darwin skyline. Shadowed against the dawn light the buildings looked like so many tombstones.

Alex interrupted his train of thought. “Well?”

Russell crossed to his door and waved his assistant in. “I’ll have an anti-riot battalion on the way within the hour. Real hard-hitting bastards.” To his assistant he said, “Squads four and six, full gear, in the yard in thirty minutes. Go.”

The man nodded and ran for the stairs.

“With them will be air and water,” Russell said to Alex.

“Food, too, if you can. The farms are above Platz Station, so he effectively has a hold on them. I know there’s a
shortage
down there and all …”

“Har, har. No problem, enough to feed an army.”

“All right,” Alex said, “see you soon then. Doc is here, ordering me to rest. Which reminds me, I’m pretty useless with my shoulder like this. Captain Larsen, my second in command, will be acting on my behalf.”

“Any good?”

“I just met him, actually,” Alex admitted. “He’s been running security up at Hab-One.”

“He runs a major thing like that and you just met him?”

“Never needed to,” Alex said, “because he’s been doing the job so well.”

Russell understood this. His best people were the ones he could assign a task and then forget about. “I look forward to working with him. Blackfield, out.”

He switched off the connection and stared out at the horizon. Slums, as far as the eye could see. A million hungry mouths and diarrheic asses.

As soon as Platz was well and truly defeated, Blackfield would announce a new way of doing things down here. He would release the food and fire up the rest of the desalination plants.

The people would cheer his name. He could practically hear it carried on the rolling thunder.

The men aligned in an uneven grid. Russell walked up and down the rows, nudging them into line with swift strikes from his baton to the back of the calf. It didn’t take them long to realize he was serious.

Two hundred men in all. Many of them even carried the same gear, appropriated from the Australian army after the collapse. A few had weapons acquired on their own, and as a rule Russell never questioned how they came across such equipment. They just had to prove that it worked reliably, and that they had ammunition in sufficient quantity.

Russell stopped at the front of the assembly, his back to them. A light rain fell, just more than a mist. He looked up at the cord of the Elevator, which faded into the mist just a few hundred meters above.

His eyes turned to the busy dockworkers in front of the array of soldiers. Ten cargo climbers were being prepared for the journey. Per his instructions, each would carry the maximum load of eight containers: two water, two compressed air, two food, and two personnel.

A crane loomed overhead, waiting to lift the massive vehicles and swing them into position, where another crew would clamp them onto the cord itself. Billions of microscopic legs inside the climber’s central shaft would then grip the thin thread and begin to crawl upward.

Russell turned to face the men. They snapped to attention, more or less in unison.

He began his address. “I know you all enjoy our weekly jaunts into the square outside to quell the rioters.”

This drew some laughs, and more than a few
whoops
of agreement.

“And I know you’re all disappointed that you weren’t sent out to patrol Aura’s Edge and have some target practice against these supposed packs of ‘newsubs.’”

A mix of grumbles and assent this time. Everyone wondered about the rumors. Subs working in large packs, coming in from the Clear and rampaging through neighborhoods. Russell didn’t believe it, but he’d sent a few squads out to make a show of effort.

“Well, I have a different task for you lot. Something much more interesting.”

Silence, now. He had them hanging on every word.

“Playtime,” Russell said, raising his voice, “is over.” He paused for effect, enjoying the sight of two hundred grins being whisked away. The yard grew silent, save for the rain that dripped from the rooftops—and the busy climber crews.

He continued. “Today will be a turning point. The start of a new era, where we Darwinians no longer live off the table scraps of those who sit above us.” Now he had their undivided attention. “Yesterday a routine security inspection, led by my Orbital counterpart and friend Alex Warthen, was ambushed on Platz Station.”

A murmur ran through the troops. Russell held up a hand and waited for quiet.

“Neil Platz has fired the first volley in a conflict that I aim to end. Today.”

The men shouted in unison, a single whoop. Russell felt a twinge of pride, and fed off it.

“Commander Warthen took thirty of his best men into Platz Station, and they were repelled. The commander himself took a bullet.” Russell began to pace through the ranks, hands clasped behind his back. He’d seen the behavior in an old war movie, and liked it. “They retreated to Gateway,” he said, pointing upward, “just four hundred klicks that way.”

Russell stopped in front of one of the soldiers, a black man with bloodshot eyes. “Any idea what he did when he got there?”

“No, sir,” the man said.

Russell looked the soldier up and down and nodded with satisfaction. He turned back to the group at large. “He called me. And
begged
for help!”

They shouted again, louder this time.

“You see, they’ve got it pretty easy up there,” Russell said. “His men are soft. What Warthen needs right now is a bunch of skull-cracking, bad-ass sons of bitches who know how to keep squabblers in line!”

The last part of this was lost in the hollering of the men, now smacking their rifles with the palms of their hands.

“Are we going to hide here, in the safety of these walls?”

“No, sir!”

“Are we going to cower here, waiting for another shipment of rotting fruit?”

“No, sir!”

“No, sir, that’s right.” Russell returned to his position in front of them. “What we’re going to do is ride to the rescue.”

“Yes, sir!”

“What we’re going to do … is kick some Orbital ass.”

“Yes, sir!”

“And we’re not leaving,” Russell said, lowering his voice to draw them in, “until Neil fucking Platz pays for his cowardly ambush.”

They cheered again, loud enough to wake the whole of Nightcliff, and much of Darwin, Russell thought.

“And mark my words, Neil fucking Platz will never again dictate the affairs of Nightcliff. Of Darwin.”

The men roared.

Russell turned to face the climbers again, mostly to hide his broad smile.

This was going to be fun.

Chapter Thirty-one

Aura’s Edge, Darwin, Australia

9.FEB.2283

Three Nightcliff soldiers cowered in the dusty ground-floor storefront. The acrid smell of burnt gunpowder filled the hazy air, and spent shell casings littered the concrete floor.

One stood at the open doorway, leaning out to view the street beyond. He held his AK-47 in a white-knuckled grip, braced against his armpit. Sweat and blood dotted his face. Smoke still curled up from the tip of the gun’s barrel.

Abandoned cars clogged the street outside, many still occupied by the remains of those who had almost made it to Darwin, to the Aura’s safety, five years earlier. They’d made it as far as the shifting, rippling Aura only to die in the traffic jam, unwilling to leave the safety of their cars as subhumans swarmed the area. The no-man’s-land had been left to rot ever since.

Until tonight.

Ramesh looked down at his own feeble pistol. An antique, with his last four bullets in the clip.

“We’re cut off,” the third man said, from his crouched position by the large square hole in the wall that a shop window once filled. “We’ll never make it back to the barricade.”

“Shut up,” the man by the door said. His maroon helmet had a nasty dent in it from a newsub who’d swung a tire iron at him. “There’s more coming. I hear them.”

“We’re fucked,” said the one by the window.

Ramesh agreed, silently. Four of their squad mates lay in the street outside. Two others had run off, new additions to the enemies’ numbers. He ran a finger along the pistol and decided he’d save the last bullet for himself. Even if they survived another wave of these so-called newsubs, it wouldn’t matter. They’d been pinned down beyond the barricade too long. The Aura didn’t protect as well here, and he could already feel the headache coming on. The first symptom, everyone knew that.

Blackfield’s order: Clear Aura’s Edge of the newsubs. Quick sorties into the dark streets, find their nests, clear them, and get back. In reward, volunteers would be placed on the list for Orbital duty.

Not worth it. Not even close.
Ramesh could hear their inhuman grunting in the street outside, close now.

“Our reinforcements should get here soon,” said the guard at the door. “We hold here. Got it?”

The one by the window rose to his feet with a grunt. “Why wait? Fuck this. Let’s get back to the barricade with the others. We’ll end up diseased if we stay any longer.”

One of the subhumans screamed, a sound so awful Ramesh wanted to clap his hands over his ears. Then the cry ended sharply.

Gunshots rattled off in the street, lighting the sides of the abandoned buildings in brief flashes. Ramesh moved to the window, unable to stop himself. “Reinforcements?” he asked.

No one needed to answer. The gunshots were coming from
outside
Darwin, not toward the barricade. Subhumans loped over the derelict cars toward the sound, their scrawny forms lit with each salvo from some unseen position down the street. One’s head snapped backward in midair and it fell, lifeless, just outside the empty window frame. Three more fell in as many seconds.

In those flashes of light, Ramesh saw a man standing atop the shell of a van. He swung his weapon in quick arcs, rattling off shots with unnerving calm. The rifle sounded different than an AK. Quiet, more refined.

“Who the hell is that?” the soldier in the doorway said.

Ramesh didn’t care. Could be Jesus H. Christ, or the Devil himself. Either way the man was killing subs one after another, and that was all that mattered.

A subhuman rushed toward the man from beyond the Aura, from his blind side. Ramesh aimed and squeezed a shot off. He missed, but it slowed the creature, and in the next second its body convulsed as bullets tore through it.

“Help him,” Ramesh managed to say as he fired again. Two bullets left.

His squad mates finally took action and began to provide cover fire.

The man saw them then and leapt from the van. He jogged toward their position while still shooting, one arm wrapped around his torso.

Skyler plowed through the doorway and slid to a seated position by the back wall. His ribs felt as if on fire, and he wanted to faint as soon as he reached the wall.

Three men in the storefront room stared at him with wide eyes. “Don’t stop shooting on my account,” Skyler said.

The one with the maroon helmet by the door turned and started to fire again. A Nightcliff guard, then. The other two looked like street thugs. One, an Indian man, crawled to Skyler’s position. “I’m Ramesh. You okay?”

“Just need a second,” Skyler replied.

“That was amazing,” he whispered. “What you did—”

“Won’t matter if they get in here. Keep shooting.”

“Out of bullets,” Ramesh admitted.

Skyler pulled a Sonton pistol from a shoulder holster. He’d found the gun on his miserable trek home, from the corpse of a dead traffic cop. He flipped the weapon around and stuffed it into Ramesh’s waiting hand.

The shooting from the others subsided as the newsubs retreated.

“Who are you?” the man asked, eyes fixed on the fine pistol.

“Skyler—”

“Skyler?” the one by the door said. He swung his AK-47 around and pointed it at Skyler’s chest. “Blackfield’s got a huge reward out for you.”

Before Skyler could say a word, a subhuman flew through the open window. It tackled the thug who crouched there, slashing at his face even as they toppled to a heap in the center of the room.

Skyler broke for a rear door that led farther into the building. He had no idea where it went; he just knew he had to get away.

“Come back!” The shout came from Ramesh, and Skyler ignored it.

To his dismay, the passageway was not an exit but a stairwell, going up. Skyler took them three at a time, flight after flight. The sounds of battle receded behind and below.

At the fourth floor, Skyler stopped and ducked into a side hall. The condition of the space was no different than the first floor—concrete floors and a grid of exposed support columns. He listened at the stairs, hearing only the battle below.

That would change, and soon. Whichever side won, Skyler had to assume the building would be searched.

He jogged to the empty windows along the outer wall. Skyler leaned out and studied the street below, just in time to see a burst of fire from the leader’s powerful rifle. The sound of the gun echoed through the deserted buildings along the narrow street, like a succession of thunderclaps.