The Uprising (The Julianna Rae Chronicles) (13 page)

4th May, 2018, 2130 hours.

Sector #8

Returning to the city was easy. Getting through the Sectors safely wasn’t as straight forward. Gate Twelve was closing its sentry for the evening. The familiar face which had let her out earlier in the week with Daniel, packed his paper and his coffee cup, and slung one of his two rifles into the back seat of his luxurious, four door car. She’d only ever seen them with her family – this guy was spoilt.

The amount of things he juggled led the last of his coffee to spill half-way down his leg. He cursed
behind the fence governed with razor wire, talking to himself and closing for the night.

Julianna
rode her bike to the entrance, knowing the hovers and shift change weren’t far behind.

‘You picked a hell of a time
to show your face around here.’

‘I need some papers to
move through Sector Three.’

The middle-aged
balding man adjusted his rifle. ‘Okay. Isis does enough for me to owe him, but get rid of the bike will you, and quickly too. Change of shift will be here any moment.’

She brushed at her eyes
as she wheeled the bike. They stung from the crying she’d done on the way in from the farm house. The highway had been empty; the escape efficient and speedy. Yet, she’d cried on the way, pulling to the side of the road because she couldn’t see through her tears.

He opened the boot of his car, slinging what was left in
his hands, into its compartment and waited for her to run across the threshold of where the city met country.

‘Get in. I can’t get you papers at a pinch. I’m no miracle worker, but I can get you into S three. I’m driving right through the place.’

She looked at the spilt oil, dirty rags and spare tire resting casually in the center of the boot with his rifle. He helped her in with his hand used for balance.

‘Just so you know; we have doubled the troops in each Sector tonight. There’s talk of attacks. Everyone’s on standby.’

It didn’t surprise her. With two high profile prisoners to entertain in Central, Taris would expect retaliation.
Maybe he hopes for it.
The thought flipped her stomach. Her stomach sunk lower.

Right now
Bas was having the shit kicked out of him. She pushed the vision away only for it to creep back in. She saw the interrogation unfold at the farm house. Taris wanted the safe house location.

‘You can come with m
e to the safe house,’ she said. He lowered the hood. She knelt down awkwardly over the objects threatening to poke her.

‘I have a wife and kids waiting for me in S one. I can’t keep helping you guys out. I think they’re on to me.’

She met eyes with the friendly plump face. ‘Last time then, I won’t ask again.’

He nodded. The hood locked,
concealing her in darkness but for a small rusted hole that allowed the moonlight to enter in broken streams. She put an eye to it as the car engine turned. It spluttered. He turned the key again and the engine hummed.

Extra patrol
s and drones posted along the roads they drove. It was dark and the evening was thick with tension. Every corner possessed armed officers fashioned in riot gear. The hover drones zoomed in swarms, keeping their own guard on the boundaries predetermined from the Central Control room; scanning every passerby who braved the last curfew.

She embraced the boot’s darkness shrouding her, feeling the shake of the car as it drove across a pothole,
deeper into the breach the central Sectors.

What could he possibly owe Isis?
Is it because I’m the Seer?

Bas appeared again. She squeezed her eyes shut and
his image disappeared in exchange for a headache. Taris had blind-sighted her. He’d snuck up from behind and completely surprised her, and now Bas was his prisoner. Her temples thumped. From the inside of the car, the man with the friendly face heard her groans.

The car stoppe
d. Her half-closed eyes widened in the light cast by the patrol’s torches through the hole, biting at her vision.

‘Commander’s orders, Beefy. We need to
complete a car check.’

The words sliced through her. She recognized
the sentry point as Sector Five, driving through Sector’s Seven and Six without stopping. She imagined him flashing his friendly smile to the guards he worked closest with, and probably shared a meal and a drink with. They’d have waved him through without a second thought. Sector Five was different.

‘Beef, open the fucker up. Commander’s orders.’

Sectors’ Five, Three and One continued to rotate through Militia, never allowing for the same face on shift for more than a week. Sector Eight in contrast, was the place for those who bordered on retirement; or who had a medical dispensation due to military action. It was their weak point and she’d exploited it. Now they were asking for a car search in notorious Sector Five – the Sector of high arrests, the Sector that always led to trouble and chases.

Beefy, the friendly faced patrol officer led the sentry guards to the front of his car. They were out of her sight and no one stood to her back. Beefy had their attention, opening the car doors for them to search. 

Her trembling fingers pried the boot latch free. She struggled with her unsteady legs and blurring sight; promising herself that when she had the chance, she’d ask Caden what the hell was happening to her body. She knew he knew, a master watcher would have to know.

The spotlights switched on.
The drones were to the front of the car propping for instruction. The empty sentry box offered enough cover, that when she crouched low and slipped into the small box-like building, no one noticed.

She snatched a comms resting above the monitors and took the security access pass that hung on a hook
beside it. The Sig Sauer pistol on the table was loaded and keys beside it might open some locks. She took it all and ran to the next block to a quiet alleyway. There she rested, deliberating how she would cross into Sector Four.

*    *    *

She took inventory of where she crouched, watching the drones swarm above the gates. How she hated those mechanical birds with their eyes like fire. Crossing the rooflines of Sector Five into Sector Four had been easy. It was a common path she was familiar with from her Club Star nights when she needed to abandon her bike.

Sector Four borders were
n’t kind tonight, forcing her down a derelict fire escape as the drones sensed her heat signature. A role in a puddle threw them off her scent, but now she shivered from the cold clothes clinging against her skin. The outline of the safe house in the distance was becoming an impossible objective to reach.

Can’t make this obvious, J Rae. A chase will lead them to Sector Three.

She closed her eyes.

Calling Caden Madison
.

She made light of the situation.
Her head thumped. She slumped against the steel dumpster that shielded her from the patrols who blurred every time they moved in the street.

T
he looming building blended into the foreground. Thick paint blacked out the windows shrouding it in darkness like its deserted neighbors. The impression of dereliction from the outside masked the ten active levels inside. Its rooftop snipers line-of-sight to the sentry would show her in their scopes if they knew where to look. Maybe squad leader Hensley spoke with Caden, discussing her arrival, if Caden had heard her plea. She clumsily slipped further down into the puddles.

             
Maybe Caden’s getting the crap kicked out of him alongside Bas. Face it, you’re on your own again. Just the way you like it.

Her heavy eyes struggled
to stay open. Her body wanted to sleep. She had no idea she was ass deep in a puddle.

Where the fuck are you?

Her eyes jolted open. It wasn’t her voice calling inside her mind. 

‘Caden, is that you?’

The sentry was changing. Night shift took the handover and for the moment, patrols were doubled. She muttered her location, thinking maybe she had dozed off after all.

I’m coming. Stay where you are.

Was he at the safe house? She felt herself slipping away. Just five more minutes of rest—

Her eyes closed despite
her body shaking from fingers through to her hands, arms and legs. Her head no longer thumped – she was unaware of the troops patrolling. All she cared for was the heavy sleep that crept through her body.

4th May, 2018, 2130 hours.

Central Command Interrogation Unit, Sector #1

‘Bastiaan, Bastiaan, Bastiaan,’ Taris dragged a chair across the floor to straddle it in front of
his cell. ‘It’s really been a long time for us,’ he lit a cigarette and threw the pack through the bars. ‘Hasn’t it?’

Bas agreed. It was all he could do
. He lit a cigarette before throwing the packet onto his cell bed. ‘You’ve done a lot with the place. Fresh paint always hid the blood stains well.’

Bas wandered the
enclosure. It was a large cell by standards, one of the larger ones. He remembered it well. It was an old favorite for interrogation because of its roominess.

The smoke he exhaled from his lungs curled around him in a thin cloud,
its pattern floating to the ceiling, attracting his gaze. His lips pursed, the hook hanging from a fastened chain was still there; it’s meaning all too sinister. He wondered if Taris would put it to use.

‘Could always use a man with your sniper talents.’

‘No doubt,’ he said tightly and tipped the hook. It nodded in the secured bolts grip. Would they hang him from it, or merely secure him? ‘Look, I know you’re upset—’

Taris replied. ‘Upset?’ he slipped from the chair to stand beside the cell. ‘Why would I be upset? You’re in there and I’m on the verge of winning this forsaken w
ar. You’re reading me all wrong.’

Bas left the hook
rocking above him. ‘Am I, Tarisos?’ his disbelief provoked a grin across his cousin’s face. ‘And how should I be reading this then, if I’m so wrong?’

‘You tell me,’
Taris shrugged. ‘Tell me, what happened with your fanatical ways? I’m curious. You were always so supportive of the family. What’s the deal, what changed?’

‘I saw the light.’

Taris laughed. ‘I suppose your brother did too, or is that just a mid-life crisis the man’s going through?’

A tortured scream echoed from a distant cell. Bas waited for another cry, envisioning the acts of cruelty.

‘Sounded like it hurt,’ Taris said. Two soldiers flanked him.

‘The interrogation wing after all,’ Bas said
and returned a low gaze to the soldiers staring at him. The cry for mercy frantically came as quick as the silence.

‘Indeed it is,’ Taris agreed. ‘Remember when it was yours?’

Bas took a last puff from his cigarette, while Taris sauntered arrogantly to his neighboring cell, and though his cigarette was only half spent, he flicked it through the cell bars, next to his captor’s foot.

Taris stepped it out deliberately. The ugly black scuff trailed his boot along the white floors reflecting the fluorescents’ above, not stopping until he stood outside the next gated cell.

‘How you goin’ ol’ man?’ Taris leaned over to Bastiaan’s cage. ‘Never thought he’d end this way. Always had visions of bigger and better things for the bastard mutt.’

‘What’d you do to him?’ Bas asked.

‘Not sure what went wrong,’ Taris turned his head towards the cell. ‘Just went all floppy and quiet during the questioning,’ he raised his voice. ‘Playing possum perhaps, Hal? Guild got your tongue?’

Bas wrapped his large hands around the bars holding him in. It was the only way of seeing out into the line of clean
empty cells with matching interiors. Stark, secure, and well-polished.

Easier to maintain with a fire hose,
Bas thought.
Harder to escape.

Bastiaan looked to the corner. The drains were still there
in their tinged copper from the previous occupants’ interrogations.

Did Julianna escape from this wing or was it the regular cells?
He looked around again –
not a hope. Taris would’ve killed her.
She escaped the regular cells held for the norms, the old tunnels. It’s how she got out, he underestimated her.

‘What were you saying?’ Taris frowned. ‘Thinking about that girl again?’

‘Strong is the force in this one.’ Bas teased. How he missed life’s simple pleasures, like a once highly regarded movie. ‘Visit the Senate of late? We don’t normally acquire abilities like yours without help, unless you’re as talented as Caden or me.’

‘Even you’ve had wisdom imparted your way.’ Taris smiled. 

‘Difference is, we earned it.’

‘All I want is
Julianna and the safe house location in Sector Three.’ Taris turned to his soldiers filing in behind him. ‘It’s a large place to search, and the girl’s really pissing me off.’

Bas
tightened his hands around the bars. ‘Jealousy was never your better trait. We have the Seer, you don’t.’

‘No one
owns
the Seer, Bastiaan. Haven’t you discovered Julianna’s tendency to suddenly disappear in the heat of the moment?’ Taris stepped back. ‘Someone like her needs capturing in a subtle way, imprisoned emotionally,’ his soldiers stepped forward. ‘She needs to be convinced there is no alternative.’

Cade, you sneaky little fucker.

‘And how’s that theory working for you?’ Bas asked.

Banging away at her like
that, well done son, well done.

Taris shuffled towards the far wall. ‘With her, not so good. With you...’ his eyes flickered and his soldiers pounced.

Bas struggled in the grasp of each man systematically latching onto his wrists, heaving them through the bars with their strength. Their walker strength crushed him against the iron rods with their grapple, restraining his thrashing struggle despite his exhaustion. The power of a walker against his attempts to pull free quickly drained what fight he had left.

‘What t
he hell are you doing?’ Bas slammed hard against the bars again.

‘Surely Katherine Deveaux mentioned the new methods we employ. We’ve come in leaps since you left.’

‘Prick,’ Bas whispered.

Taris fumbled inside his pocket. ‘Ah. She meant something to you,’ he murmured. ‘I’m so sorry for your los
s Bastiaan. She was a beautiful and exquisite specimen of a woman,’ he stepped closer. ‘A gorgeous, seductive woman.’

Bas
raised his eyes beneath his furrowed brow.

Taris swayed his head. ‘Yeah,
the things that woman did with her body, yes indeed. She didn’t suffer for too long, did she?’ he asked. ‘I tried to keep her torment short. Just long enough to see her camp folk again.’

The soldiers pulled hard and his face pressed between the bars. 

‘She was a norm though,’ Taris said. ‘So few full-bloods like us are left. We should be doing everything to protect against all this inter-breeding that happens these days.’

An inoculation pen pushed
into Bastiaan’s wrist while the soldiers held their grasp around his arms. Bas cringed.

‘It’s why we have those camps. We need to start again
– purify our species. It’s the only saving grace for your precious Julianna. She’ll provide an invaluable contribution to the gene pool. ’

The soldiers released Bas. He grasped the bars with white knuckles as the first wave of pain washed over him.

‘What’s your thoughts on the inter-breeding these days?’

His body trembled. He stared into an empty space
with his knees threatening to buckle. His mind raced. His breathing quickened. Taris persuaded his attention, and they met with each other.

‘Judging from your expression, old boy, you feel the same way I do.’

‘Ethnic cleansing never solved anything.’

The acid burned
beneath his skin. Bas fought the blurry vision and the headache which arrested him; leaning his head between the cold bars.

‘Not such a wise ass now.’

‘Is this your plan of attack, Taz?’ He clutched his tightening chest. ‘What is this shit?’

‘We’ve found a switch in people. We can turn them into whatever it is we want them to become.
Fighting machines, traitors,’ Taris watched him falter. ‘We can turn a four year old child into a cold-blooded killing machine in less than forty-eight hours. It’s an interesting process to watch. Thought I might share the experience with you first hand.’

Bas cupped his hands aroun
d his head. The sweat thickened around the line of his thick black hair to his toes. Beads rolled down the sides of his face and crook of his back.

‘Lean into it,’ Taris said quietly. ‘It’s easier if you do.’

His head clouded over. Bas collapsed onto his haunches with his heart pounded into his ears and behind his eyes, the sickening feeling was incessant. He sat back on his trembling hinds, collapsing to his side, into the fetal position. The icy touch of the polished concrete gave his burning body some comfort while his eyes followed Taris.

‘See you soon, old friend. I’m sure to find a senior uniform in your size.’

‘Cold day in hell, Tarisos.’

‘But it is a cold day in hell, Bastiaan.’ Taris crouched on the other side and laughed. ‘It’s freezing in here and you’re right in the thick of it.’

The guards stood at their posts, watching and whispering between each other, waiting for their Commander to straighten.

‘Call me after his first delirium,’ Taris ordered.

The guards saluted and Taris left them to their post. Nothing else was said.

Bas rested on his side, staring at the freshly painted wall. The low tremor in his body turned into a violent shudder. Wearily he raised his cheek from where it rested and the soldiers readied their ri
fles until he lowered it down in his surrender. Tomorrow he feared he’d hunt again. For the first time in a long time he prayed to the God he no longer believed in, to keep them safe from his way.

*     *     *

The pain from his wrists woke him. It shot into his arms stretched above his head, taking the entirety of his body weight, while he hung above the ground.

He fixated on the hook in the ceiling, latching the chain between his cuffs. The outline slowly came into focus as his body swung and the metal bracelets cut deeper into his skin.

‘
And so it starts,’ he muttered.

A fresh line of blood flowed down his naked arm, thinning out with its stretch along his torso.
His shirt was bunched in the corner, thrown hastily after they’d undressed him. He studied the cell, his wrists, and the bars. The guards watched him from the tier.

So this is what it is
, to be on the receiving end of the Militia.

His mind searched for a rational and came up with faces of prisoners instead.
The countless times he subjected a prisoner to beatings and torture, the countless prisoners that begged him for a quick death.

Karma
, sunshine, karma
.
New times for a New World Order.

The fluorescents scowled down at him, bright and harsh against his sore eyes. A metal trolley on
wheels stood in the back corner with its contents on the top tray exposing neat rows of half-full vials beside inoculation pens and identification markers, all pointing in his direction. The bottom shelf exchanged quiet contemplation for horror. Their intentions screamed reprogramming. The neatly folded uniform resting on the lower shelf that was in his size, stirred his dread.

Caden leapt into mind, then Julianna, then Daniel. The information he had on the Rebellion and Isis, the intelligence he possessed would bring their part of the war crashing to its knees.

He yelled for Taris. The footsteps stopped. Whispering floated into his cell. A soldier showed himself and the rifle he held across his waist. 

‘He’s awake
.’ 

‘Very good,’ Taris said.
             

The soldier
moved for Taris to enter the cell with his gun in his hand.

‘So how are we feeling? Did you rest well? The accommodation to your liking?’

‘I couldn’t be freakin better. Still tripping, actually. Some good shit you have there.’

Taris rammed the body of his gun across the backs of Bastiaan’s knees.

‘I want some information,’ he said.

‘Bastiaan T. Madis
on, Rebellion Commander of the Tenth Battalion—’

Taris struck again, sending a steady flow of b
lood towards the copper tinged drain.

‘Safe house location.’

Crack! Crack! Crack!

‘Fuck me,’ Bas muttered. ‘Fucking prick.’

‘The safe house location is?’ Taris asked.

The chain swung his body under the weight of the assault. Taris wiped the blood onto his pants
and circled his prey. 

‘Okay. Something else.
How about you know the identity and location of Isis.’ Taris stopped in front of him. 

Bas grimaced.
‘I’m bored.’

The soldier extended his rifle to Taris.
He took it, lined it up, swinging it over his shoulder for the feel of it as he stopped behind Bas.