Greenthings all.
This is my first post to the list, so please bear with me. If I'm doing
something wrong, please tell me (directly, not via the list).
Disclaimer: Bubblegum Crisis, AD Police, and all the other spinoffs are not
mine. Most of the characters depicted are original, although those that have
appeared previously in any of the above mentioned animes/OVA's are
intellectual property of their creator. I am merely using BGC as a setting,
and attempting to create an original story within that setting. Please do
not sue me, as I am jobless and do this merely as a hobby (I think that's
all I wanted to say).
C&C welcome: You can say all you like, flame me, praise me, or whatever, but
please do it privately, unless there is something in this fic which you feel
needs group discussion.
Warning: DAG - Dark And Grim: some of the views expressed by the characters
might prompt especially sensitive people to episodes of emotional
instability. If you are easily affected by dark visions of the future,
please refrain from reading this fic.
Warning: SLAIN - Strong Language And INnuendo: The characters in the fic use
explicit language very often, and hints at sexual viewpoints, inclinations
and other 'mautre themes' are not uncommon. If you are underaged and read
this, I will accept no responsibility for anything you do later on. If you
are offended by sexual or religious swear words, or any sort of strong
language, please refrain from reading this fic. I feel the use of strong
language is appropriate in this fic because in the world portrayed there is
very little to be polite about, unless you are a Genom employee adressing a
superior.
All that said and done, if you are still willing to read the fic, continue
on down.
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DREAMS OF THE SLEEPING CITY
Prologue - Faces
Barcelona, 23rd October 2042. 5:45pm.
St. James's Square
As the bells in the clock tower of Barcelona's most famous cathedral struck
quarter to six in the afternoon, a large, dark-blue limousine was making its
way slowly into St. James's Square. Being late autumn, the sun was already
well on its way down, and the dark, overcast sky added to the generally
oppressive atmosphere. The temperature was still relatively warm, but the
impending storm would soon be changing that. A street musician was playing
his saxophone at moderate decibels in one of the small pedestrian-only
sidestreets that led to the square, the lonely sound of his instrument
echoing faintly on the walls of the narrow street and flowing, muffled, into
the square. In general, street musicians were forbidden from playing so
close to St.James's Square, but this particular musician lived in the
neighbourhood, and most of the cops on patrol knew him by sight, if not
personally. Thus they let him be.
Only two things made the afternoon different from any other autumn
afternoon; on the one hand was the group of six small tents that were set in
a ring just to the side of the main entrance of Barcelona's city hall.
Around them, a group of eighteen men sat and stood, looking tired, unkempt,
and generally in a bad mood. The tourists walked around the little squatter
settlement as they casually read the large signs that had been fixed around
the tents in a vague semblance of a fence, distracted momentarily from their
examination of the architecture of City Hall on one side of the square and
the Generalty Palace on the opposite one. The messages on the signs were
many and varied, but the general consensus seemed to be that the City Police
Corps wanted better pay and better work conditions, mainly more safety. The
limousine crept slowly among the dwindling afternoon crowds of tourists, who
gawked at the huge vehicle. The locals, however, didn't seem to pay it much
attention, and it was only natural; St. James's square boasted the highest
concentration of government facilities in the city, and large, dark-blue
limousines like the one that was making its way through the square were, if
not a daily occurrence, rather common. The only locals who gave the
limousine a second glance were the picketed police officers, who did so only
to swear loudly at its occupants.
The thing that made the limousine unusual was that it was the sixth that
had crossed the square in the last twenty minutes, as it headed towards the
entrance of the exclusive underground parking located in one of the small
sidestreets that bordered the Generalty. Unseen from the inside, the
vehicle's passenger gazed at the cops in front of City Hall. His expression
was sombre, and the double chin that peeked out from the collar of his white
shirt gave him a somewhat unhappy expression. Heaving a heavy sigh, the man
turned to look the other way, at the officers guarding the entrance to the
Generalty, dressed in their spotless red-on-dark blue guard uniforms.
Scarcely ten metres away, standing guard at the entrance of the Generalty
underground parking, were two more officers, but these wore the dark blue
jump suits, beret and flak jacket that formed the Barcelona Police Corps's
combat gear. One of the guards had a shotgun slung over his shoulder, while
the other rested both hands on a submachine gun. Both were equipped with a
regulation sidearm, tazer stick, and complete field utility belt. The city
coat of arms on their berets glinted golden in the afternoon sunlight.
"The three sides of a triangle," he said as he turned his head back to
glance at the picket tents. His voice was weary, that of a man who had lost
a battle and was being forced to admit defeat while kneeling at his victor's
feet. "and soon we'll have a fourth one, making it a square..." The two
bodyguards at his sides said nothing, although they were both puzzled as to
what he meant.
The chauffeur of the limousine glanced at his passenger through the
rearview mirror, but then he focused his attention back to the driving of
the vehicle. Whoever had designed the entrance to the Generalty's
underground parking hadn't realised that official vehicles were much heavier
and slightly lower to the ground than the average car on the street. The
fact was, the slope of the parking's ramp started much too abruptly, and
that meant that driving one of the armoured monsters onto and down the slope
that led to the parking proper was a nightmare for even the most experienced
drivers. Having driven down that slope well over five hundred times over the
course of his career, the chauffeur had perfected the timing of deceleration
and acceleration required to save the undercarriage of the limousine from
expensive repairs, but it was still a delicate affair.
The driver stopped the vehicle at a seemingly normal column, the front of
the vehicle a scarce half a metre from the imposing road barrier that
prevented access to the parking. A small panel in the column opened up, and
a small mechanised arm with a dark glass ball at the end extended from it
until it was almost touching the driver's window. Knowing what to expect,
the chauffeur turned his gaze away from the column as a short flash of red
light emitted from the glass ball at tip of the arm. He heard, as he had
heard dozens of times before, the mechanical whirring as the arm returned to
its niche in the column and the panel rose to cover its insides once more.
Then, the familiar female voice invited him to proceed as the road barrier
rose out of the way. With practiced delicacy he stepped gently on the car's
accelerator, coaxing the vehicle gently forward onto the ramp, his ears
alert for the scraping sounds of the floor beneath the vehicle against its
undercarriage. The car finally made it completely onto the slope, and the
driver let out the breath he had been holding. He allowed the car to move
forward on its own momentum, and the vehicle's APS system to do most of the
work of steering the car down the spiralling ramp. A few moments later, the
car was on the first level of the parking, and he drove it to an empty space
between two limousines identical to the one he was driving. The floor of the
emtpy parking space was marked "Economy Counsellor" in large white letters.
Stopping the vehicle, he waited for the passengers to step out. As the
overweight man in the middle struggled, as he always did, with the
relatively narrow opening of the car's rear door, the chauffeur tipped his
hat.
"Have a good afternoon, Counsellor," he called as the Counsellor's second
bodyguard stepped out of the car.
"You too, Albert." the Counsellor replied absently. His voice still sounded
miserable. Albert watched them head over to the elevator for a short moment
before driving the car carefully onto its designated parking area. Killing
the engine, he removed the key from the ignition and stepped out. He was
feeling rather thirsty, and was looking forward to a couple of beers at the
Cau del Call. The Counsellor had already informed him that the meeting would
go on until late, so there was plenty of time. If the Counsellor changed his
mind, one of his goons would page him, and he would come back. The main
advantage of the Cau was that it was less than five minute's walk from the
parking. Talk about convenience.
Smiling to himself, Albert began to whistle as he headed for the ramp. The
elevator, leading as it did straight into the Generalty, was reserved to
V.I.P's and their escort. Drivers like him used the ramp back up, and the
petty bureaucrats that worked in the building didn't even get a parking
space. It was, after all, the most exclusive parking lot in the city.
----------
As he walked through Barcelona's Montjuich park, the largest in the city,
Lieutenant Donovan Furst cursed. Although it was hardly mid-afternoon the
sky was dark, blotted out by heavy storm clouds. It was obvious he wasn't
going to get home in time to avoid a shower, and he cursed himself for not
taking his car to work. As an afterthought, he cursed the weather, which had
been more unpredictable than usual the last few weeks.
"It didn't use to be this way," muttered Furst, remembering his childhood.
In his younger days it had been rare for storms to kick up out of nowhere
with such little notice. Nowadays it was surprising if a storm took more
than a few hours to brew up. "I don't know why I even bother taking these
walks in the park. Its so... depressing..." he continued, pulling up the
collar of his trenchcoat to keep the icy winds of Barcelona's winter from
biting into his face. He looked around, but as he had thought the park was
deserted. It wasn't that late, hardly quarter past six, but with the storm
brewing up it would have been stupid for anyone to be wandering on the
streets. A glimpse from his childhood flashed through his mind. In those
days he had always loved rain, and had waited eagerly for his father to come
home so they could go outside and splash in the puddles. Memories of
surprised faces as his father joined in the puddle-jumping flickered through
his mind. His father had been as enthusiastic about jumping into the puddles
as Donovan himself, despite the looks of disapproval on people's faces. And
when they tired of splashing and sloshing around under the rain they would
go back home and his father would give him a hot bath and have a shower
before they had dinner. Furst sighed, returning to the real world, and took
out his packet of Ducados. If it was going to rain, he might as well have a
smoke before the water started to fall. He lit the cigarrette and took a
long drag, taking one last look at his surroundings. The park had changed a
lot. Some of the larger trees had been stripped of their lower branches by
the homeless, who burned them in their barrels for warmth. Even doubling the
numbers of night watchmen on patrol in the park had proved useless. Last
week two of Montjuich's watchmen had been admitted to hospital with serious
injuries, having been assaulted by desperate wood poachers. One of them
suffered several broken ribs. The other one was in a coma with a fractured
skull. As if that wasn't enough, the inner city slum had expanded and
worsened in the last decade, with more and more people coming in from the
countryside and getting crammed into the low-income rabbit-box flats in the
city centre. Meanwhile, the city itself had grown, amoeba-like, to absorb
all the satellite towns and industrial complexes in what had been the city
suburbs until the turn of the century, while the megacorps did something
similar to the markets, flooding everything with cheap foreign goods that
shoved the national product off the shelves within weeks of being available
to buy, and forcing the local companies into unfavourable mergers that were
just cover-ups for grand-scale buyouts. Hardly anybody bought national
anymore, because there was nothing that could be considered national: even
the olive oil, source of pride for Spanish people everywhere before the
millenium, was a concoction of Greek and Italian mixed in with the once
famous valencian vintage, and good red wine had become a rare commodity
indeed; asking for wine in a restaurant, a common practice in that time that
seemed so far away, was now reason for people to turn their heads.
"Too many changes..." muttered Furst as he took another drag from his
cigarette. "Things weren't half as bad thirty years ago..." Taking one last
drag from the cigarette, he let it fall onto the concrete path and crushed
it under his boot, making sure it was out before picking it up and dropping
it in one of the park's metallic bins. He loved Montjuich far too much to
allow anything he did, or didn't do, to harm it. With a sour expression on
his face, he continued down the path to the exit that would leave him
closest to home.
A sudden gust of wind blew into his trenchcoat, and he insitinctively
turned to face it, extending his arms wide to catch as much of the wind as
he could. He had done that many times before, when he had been younger,
sometimes thinking, no, hoping, that the wind would blow him away, far from
the banalities of everyday life. But he had stopped doing so when his father
had died.
He had stopped doing many things the day his father died. One of them had
been studying. He had quit college, fallen out with a lot of his friends,
dumped his girlfriend. The psychiatrist he had gone to had told him to fill
the gap that his father's death had left with friends and loved ones. He had
done quite the opposite, because he had realised that there was no one who
could fill the gap his father's absence had left in his life. Not even his
mother had been able to fill that gap. A couple of months after his father's
death he had joined the military, and shortly afterwards he had moved out of
his mother's home. After six years in Special Ops, he had returned to
Barcelona and joined the police. Since then, he had done precious little
with his life. Sure, he had solved a lot of cases, had put a lot of people
into jail, had even hunted down and decomissioned a few rogue boomers. Apart
from that, nothing. No wife, no children, no mistress, nothing. He spent
most of his waking hours working, and the rest he usually spent at the bar
next to his home, drinking away until closing time. Had his parents been
alive, they would have wondered where they went wrong. Furst gave thanks
that neither could see him now.
He let his arms fall to his sides and let his chin rest on his chest. He
reached into the inside pocket of his trenchcoat and dug out his badge. He
stared at it, hardly seeing it. Instead, in his mind he saw all it
represented: order, peace, his salary, flat and pension. He smiled bitterly.
His father had been a cop too, had died on the job. Furst remembered well: A
Boomer had gone rogue as it was being transported to the port. It had
somehow managed to break out of its confinement unit and had run amok
through the city before it was finally cornered in a small indusrtrial
complex just beyond the port boundaries. There had been four dead, including
his father, but the families of the deceased had seen very little in the way
of compensation. Genom had very good lawyers, and good lawyers always ended
up winning lawsuits, somehow or other. As it were, Genom had been let off on
a technicality. The only compensation they had payed had been a hefty fine,
of which the families of the deceased only saw a minute percentage, the rest
going to the bloated pockets of politicians after going through the
impregnable maze of government bureaucracy.
Furst focused on the badge again, and saw the one thing it didn't
represent: Justice. Justice was out of a cop's hands. All he could do was
capture the culprits, gather evidence, and hope that his work was enough to
make the guilty pay. It usually worked with small fry, but the big fish were
never out of the pond for long. Furst had seen his fair share of useless
court cases in his fifteen years in the force, and although it was wearing
very thin, he still had some faith in the system, still hoped for Genom to
make the one mistake which would make all the difference. When they made the
mistake, he would be there to nail the bastards to the gates of hell.
Donovan Furst returned the badge to the inside pocket of his coat and set
off down the path again. After a few steps he began to softly whistle a tune
he had learnt from his father. It was a low, somewhat haunting tune, which
sounded vaguely like a funeral march.
In the distance, the billowing black and grey of the clouds was broken by a
flash of lightning. The rumbling roar of thunder made itself heard a couple
of seconds later.
----------
The view from the top of Barcelona's Genom Tower was, to say the least,
splendid. The recent bursts of urban growth that had pulled the city out of
the recession, the first of which had been prompted by Genom when they had
decided to move in, had expanded the city limits beyond the mountains that
surrounded it. The more conservative among the city's elite referred to the
process as 'metastasis', alluding to the process by which cancerous cells
spread throughout the body of their host, and for some time the detractors
of the city's exaggerated growth were happy to babble the word incessantly,
in public and in private, on the TV, the radio, and the papers, almost as if
they believed it was a magic word that would stop the process, and maybe
even reverse it.
But, as a very wise man said, once upon a time, 'Progress is the pump that
keeps the world fresh. Stop progress, and the world stagnates'. Barcelona's
metastasis continued, until Barcelona City had taken over almost all of
Barcelona province. Under threats of 'inconstitutionality', and 'monopoly of
the resources of Catalunya', Barcelona stopped growing inland. Having no
other direction to grow in, the city expanded into the sea, until the French
Eurocrats filed complaints in Brussels. Barcelona stopped growing again. In
under twenty years, the city had grown to be 4 times its actual size,
something comparable to London at the end of the millenium, but with blocks
of flats instead of quaint semi-detached houses. After all, semi-detached
houses could fit but a single family, while in a properly crammed,
six-storey block of flats, you could probably fit fourty or fifty.
Population increased along with with the city. Allowances were provided for
mothers with more than the average 0.89 children. With more money, people
began to have more children, or perhaps people started having more children
to have more money. Whatever the case, Spain's birth rate went from being
the lowest in the European Union to being the highest. The only problem with
that was that children needed a fair few years to grow into adults that
could begin working, but the local government had foreseen that, so at the
same time all the immigrants in the city were granted residence, and offered
decent jobs, with decent pays, and decent housing. The news spread like
wildfire; Barcelona was the new Land of Opportunity, the new Promised Land.
People raced in from from Northern Africa, from Eastern and Western Europe,
from Asia, South America, in the hopes of getting their hands on a loaf of
bread and a fish before the miracle ended. What had once been a city with a
majority of spanish inhabitants and an important immigrant population became
the 'Melting Pot' of Western Europe. Even London was left behind in sheer
diversity of creeds, nationalities, religions, and cultures. The Generalty's
four-step plan for the integration of the newly arrived saved the city from
being burned to the ground in what sociologists had since termed 'Saturation
Xenophobia'.
Things eventually calmed down, but the city had changed forever. From being
a smallish bustling city, it had been converted into a hectic crowded
metropolis. Some complained, but in general the higher standard of living
silenced most of the people who had protested the change when it had been
announced. As the saying went, 'the river resumed its course'.
Gotoki Kaji watched the city sprawling out, hundreds of feet beneath him,
through the five inch thick armoured glass windows of his office, which
occupied the entire top floor of Barcelona's Genom tower. Genom had done a
lot for the city of Barcelona ever since it had established one of its world
famous towers here. Just the construction of the tower had taken close to
seven years, with over a hundred thousand people working on it every day. It
was the tallest building in the city, dwarfing all others without exception,
and it had the largest research facilities, hidden away in the largest
underground complex the city had ever seen, rivalling even its sewer systems
and the roman ruins of the ancient Barcino. Located alongside the world
trade centre in Barcelona's Port area, the tower had been compared to the
statue of liberty in New York. Being slightly out to sea, its inland-facing
windows afforded those who looked through them a magnificent view of the
city. Kaji's window, being at the very top of the tower, had the monopoly of
the very best view of the city.
At 6' 1", Kaji was very tall for a fifty-year old Japanese man. His raven
black hair was untouched by age, something he was very proud of, and his
face didn't seem much older than that of any the many thirty-odd year-old
men that worked for the company. He had a firm jaw, a small, straight nose,
and piercing almond eyes. These, and the fact that he had very few wrinkles
for his age, contributed to the aura of power and vigour that seemed to
emanate from him. His almost thirty years in the company hadn't burned him
out as they would almost any other man; he had entered Genom when he was 23,
after a brilliant university career funded by his father. His ambition and
ability had made him rise quickly, and by the age of thirty he was a senior
systems administrator. Three years after that he had risen to the executive
committee. He had enjoyed his position of privilege, but after several years
he had grown tired, bored. He needed a challenge. That challenge presented
itself when the President had announced that he wanted to expand further in
Europe. When asked where he would propose a new branch of the company, Kaji
had said Barcelona without hesitating for a second. A few days later he was
presenting a project for the future tower. The president had loved it, and
sent him straight to the Catalan capital to start conversations with the
local authorities. He remembered clearly almost every day that had passed
since then. It had been a struggle, a challenge, and he had succeeded.
Victory at its sweetest.
In recent years, the boredom, the dreaded tiredness, had returned, but this
time it had been much stronger. He knew he could start a new branch anywhere
in the world, pull through, and change the chosen location forever. That no
longer interested him. He had 'been there, done that', as his son had often
said during his puberty. He had been at a loss about what to do with his
life. He had been pondering retirement, selling a small fraction of the
stocks he held in the company, buying a small tropical island and moving
there for the rest of his days. It had seemed like the only thing left to
do. At least, until he had discovered his most recent challenge. Something
he had been thinking about for many years, but which had only recently
become a viable project.
A discreet knock on the door pulled him back to reality, and he looked at
his gold Cartier watch. It was five minutes to six.
"Enter," he called out in Japanese. He insisted that all his direct
subordinates be Japanese. Genom was an equal possibilities company, but he
made sure personally that his direct underlings were all Japanese. He
understood the way they thought better, and they understood exactly what he
meant and wanted when he spoke. His Spanish and Catalan were fluent, and his
conversation skills were outstanding, but he felt a bit too old to be
communicating in any language that wasn't Japanese. A certain amount of
snobbish vanity, which he never admitted to, even to himself, also had a
small say in the matter.
A young man, one of his six personal secretaries dressed in a dark grey
suit, opened the door and walked in, his head lowered slightly out of
respect. Beneath his arm he carried a thick folder with neatly arranged
papers, and in his other hand he carried a metallic briefcase. His name was
Gen Kimori, and he was the only male secretary he had. Kimori took care of
all the important affairs. The other five, all young Japanese women,
efficient in their work, and exquisitely polite in their manners, took care
of the menial tasks, served him coffee, reminded him of his working-hours
timetable, and were pleasant to look at when he was feeling distracted. One
could say that they were secretaries, and Kimori was more of a personal
aide, a right-hand man.
"The meeting is about to begin, Mr. President," the man spoke politely,
slowly, and softly, as was expected when one adressed the president of a
branch of Genom. Kaji turned his back to him and went back to surveying the
city. "I also bring you the documents you asked for earlier."
"Leave them on the table. When you finish setting up you may leave,"
"Yes, Mr. President." Kimori bowed deeply, and did as he was told, quickly
but meticulously. Kaji liked that about Kimori. He was a humble, simple man,
who did his job well and fast, and didn't bother trying to gain his favour.
The younger man probably didn't know that it was precisely his humble nature
what Kaji liked most about him.
A few minutes passed, and finally Kimori spoke again. "It is ready, Mr.
President. If you no longer need me, I will return to my duties."
"Thankyou, Kimori." Kaji replied. "I will call on you later to go through
some parts of this." he said, meaning the heavy folder Kimori had placed on
one side of Kaji's desk.
"At your discretion, Mr. President." Kimori bowed once more, and quickly
left the room without losing any of his composure, the metallic briefcase in
his hand. Kaji turned round when he heard the door click shut, walked to his
desk, and sat down. Pressing a complicated sequence of numbers and letters
on the buttons in the armrest of his armchair caused the top of his desk to
slide to one side. From the opening beneath, a flat-screened plasma monitor
swivelled into view. A keyboard and mouse followed shortly. Even as it came
up, the monitor revealed that the operating system was already booting up.
By the time the computer had appeared completely, the screen was prompting
him for a password. Another, different sequence of numbers followed, still
from the armrest buttons. The screen welcomed him. He entered a command on
the computer's keyboard, japanese kana characters appearing on the screen as
he did.
As he was about to hit the enter key, a small flashing icon depicting an
eye began to flash intermittently in the top-right corner of the monitor. He
stopped, his fingers resting on the enter key, gazing thoughtfully at the
icon. Taking his fingers off the enter key, he took the mouse, and dragged
it over its mat until the pointer on the screen was over the icon. He
clicked twice. The icon opened up into a small window.
<INCOMING CONFERENCE REQUEST> read the window.
->IDENTIFY REMOTE USER> he typed.
<BACKTRACKING ON INTERNAL...> Kaji waited. Eventually, the text changed to
<REMOTE TERMINAL FOUND; CHECKING LOGIN RECORD> and finally to <USER
IDENTIFICATION SUCCESSFUL.>. Beneath it appeared the words: <REMOTE USER
IDENTIFIED: LILLITH>
Kaji read the last line of text a couple of times before accepting the
conference. A black window appeared, occupying the centre of the screen. The
computer seemed to freeze for a second before the window was resized to
occupy the whole of the screen. After another couple of seconds, the
blackness was replaced by the face of a young, red-haired woman with bright
green eyes. She had markings on her face, similar to the tribal markings of
some of the street gangs that roamed the streets, but her features were
delicate, almost elfin. Her fine neck was wrapped in blue handkerchief with
more tribal motifs in white. The woman's eyes looked up at him, and an
innocent smile flashed on her face.
"Good evening, Mr.President," she greeted him. Despite her western looks,
she spoke perfect Japanese. Her voice was one of the most beautiful Kaji had
ever heard. He loved to listen to it.
"Good evening, Lillith," Kaji replied as he looked up into the minute eye
of the monitor's inbuilt camera. "I trust you are well? I see you have
changed your looks,"
"Yes, I needed a change. It's boring to always look the same," Lillith
replied. Her voice was devoid of any emotion, except perhaps a tiny hint of
curiosity. "Do you think it suits me?"
"You always look beautiful," Kaji complimented her half-heartedly.
"Is something the matter?" her face now reflected a hint of concern.
"Usually you don't use your computer until well after nine o' clock." she
added.
"I have important work to do which can't wait until nine o' clock," Kaji's
eyes strayed momentarily to the folder on his desk. It seemed to grow bigger
every time he looked at it.
"Oh, I see," Lillith mused, sounding disappointed. "I thought perhaps you
wanted to chat with me again tonight," she explained.
"I would love to, Lillith, but I'm very busy this evening. We can meet up
again at eleven or so, if you would like. Perhaps by then I will have taken
care of the more urgent matters..." he offered her. She seemed to cheer up
at that.
"That would be 'great'," she said, winking at him. He didn't miss the fact
that she had used a slang word, something rather unusual in Lillith. "I'll
talk to you later, Mr. President,"
"I told you..." he began.
"Kaji will do..." she finished the phrase with him. "I'm sorry, I can't get
used to adressing you by your name, its against all the rules of
politeness,"
"Rules of politeness don't apply in this case,"
"Very well then, Kaji-san. I will talk to you afterwards,"
"You can say 'See you later', Lillith," he corrected her.
"See you later, then, Kaji-san," the screen went black, and another little
window appeared with the message <CONFERENCE TERMINATED BY REMOTE USER>.
"See you later, Lillith," whispered Kaji as he pressed the space bar on his
keyboard. The window disappeared and the screen once more showed the
familiar view of his operating system. Clicking in the window he had been
using, he began to type.
->UPLINK - GIMS/EC/ADS/GGPMTCCS/LILAVANTI
His fingers seemed to fly over the keys. A brief pause as the message
<CONNECTING> flashed on the screen. It was then replaced by <UPLINK COMPLETE
- WELCOME TO LILAVANTI>.
->VERIFY COM STATUS CURRENT USER - PRIORITY >2
<VERIFYING COM STATUS... VERIFICATION COMPLETE: TWO NEW TRANSMISSIONS,
TWENTY-FIVE SUBJECTS UNDER PASSIVE SURVEILLANCE, THREE SUBJECTS UNDER ACTIVE
SURVEILLANCE, ONE FLASHPOINT DETECTED. CROSSLINK TO 'FRYSOMA AND/OR
'XONIQUE' (Y/N)?> He hit the 'N' Key. After a couple of seconds, the system
prompted him for instructions.
->!LIST *SUBJECT/AS
<SUBJECT 4 - CODENAME 'TRIGGER'.
SUBJECT 9 - CODENAME 'ENDOMANCER'.
SUBJECT 21 - CODENAME 'PHYSOTH'
->!DOWNLINK AST *SUBJECT 21
<DOWNLINKING. PLEASE WAIT... DOWNLINK SUCCESSFUL. CONNECTING TO AST
112,113,118 (EUSPABARN180)... CONNECTION COMPLETE. INITIATING
TRANSMISSION...>
Kaji sat back and loosened his necktie. He got the impression that he
wasn't going to like the show.
----------
The Generalty Palace Council Room was a large, spacious affair. The only
furniture in the room was the Council table, a vast oaken structure with a
slightly reflective surface thanks to the two coats of varnish it received
yearly. Above it hung an equally vast chandelier, which remained in the room
purely for decorative reasons. The light it provided was drowned by that of
several halogen lamps which pointed to the roof, in order to illuminate the
chamber without blinding those present in it.
At that moment, seven of the nine chairs set around the massive table were
occupied. The President of the Generalty sat at the head of the table, with
six of her Counsellors. She was reading the last page of an official-looking
document, the previous two hundred or so pages of which were resting neatly
in an open plastic folder, turned page down. There was another folder,
identical except for the fact that the report inside was almost six hundred
pages long. Six pairs of eyes watched her closely; all those present knew
she had read the report, and its counterpart. Eventually, the silver-blonde
woman placed the sheet of paper she had been reading on top of the pile she
had already read. She closed the folder with an ample motion of her forearm,
and let her hand rest on the closed file. With the other she was trying to
coax the beginning of a migraine out of her head with a gentle massage to
her temple.
"Very well," she said. Her voice was strong and severe, but there was a
hint of weariness in it. Beneath the perfect makeup mask she wore, small
dark circles were testimony to the long hours she had worked during the last
week. Still, her steel-grey eyes had that determined look with which she had
captivated almost sixty percent of the Catalan voters hardly six months ago.
"Its been almost two months since we started debating this project, and both
sides of the argument look equally persuasive. It's a difficult decision,
but if we continue discussing this, the next Election day will be upon us
and all we will have done is sit here on our asses discussing the pro's and
cons of this."
"So, have you come to a decision, Mrs. President?" the question was voiced
by Oscar Mas, the overweight economy counsellor, who was sitting two seats
down on her left.
"I have," she replied solemnly. The room itself seemed to hold its breath
in anticipation.
----------
The bell that announced the end of lectures had gone off less than five
minutes ago, and lecture hall B-202 was already empty. Even the teacher had
been in a hurry to leave. It was understandable; the midday weather forecast
had announced quick-forming showers that afternoon, and everyone wanted to
get home before the storm began.
Pulling his backpack over one shoulder, he left the room, absently closing
the door behind him. Despite the end of lessons, there were still a few
people in the corridors, small groups of students who were discussing either
the answers they had given for the tests or where they would be going later
on that afternoon to celebrate the end of exams. The one he had just been
through had left him mentally drained, and he was looking forward to going
to work to forget all the stuff he had crammed into his brain the previous
night. He set off down the corridor, trying to keep formulae and equations
out of his conscious mind.
"Jeremy!" he heard someone calling him. Turning back, he saw Eleanor
weaving her way towards him.
"Hi there, Eleanor," he called back to her. "How was your exam?"
"Don't ask," she replied as she stepped up next to him. She ruffled his
hair, then took him by the arm and pulled him along. "Or, if you must, buy
me a cup of hot cocoa, and I'll tell you all about it," Jeremy's expression
soured almost instantly.
"I'd love to, Eleanor, but I've got to go to work," she stopped walking and
looked at him, her eyes full of surprise. "Can we meet up later on? I only
have half-shift today, so I could meet you for dinner,"
"Ok, that would be cool. How about nine o'clock in front of Sushi-Ya? I
feel like Japanese tonight, and I haven't seen Yoshiko in ages..."
"Sure, nine'll be fine," Jeremy replied, glad that Eleanor had chosen
somewhere relatively cheap. Before he could say anything else, Eleanor
kissed him briefly and hurried off.
"Laters, Jemmy-boy!" she called out to him, imitating the rough-and-tumble
voices of his coworkers at the Mechanical Engineering department of the
Central Police Headquarters. Jeremy winced. The way she said it made it
sound like his co-workers dug him too much. Then again, they spent all day
joking about it. He had
_almost_ grown used to it. A shudder ran down his
spine. He really didn't like that 'almost'. It seemed to imply that he
would, eventually, grow used to it.
----------
Andreas Sanchez scratched the long scar on his chest through the fabric of
his coveralls. It was going to rain soon. The scar always itched when it was
about to rain; the bastard had been itching most of the week. Wiping some
sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, he focused back on the
suit of K-7 armour he was working on.
"What a mess..." he muttered to himself for the umpteenth time that
afternoon. The armour had been on the receiving side of a particularly bad
mauling at the claws of a Boomer. The agent it had been protecting had
lived, but would probably be stuck in a wheelchair for a few months.
Whatever the case, Sanchez was glad. Armours could be repaired, or replaced.
People, on the other hand, were irreplaceable. He had learned that from his
great aunt. She had taken care of him and his four brothers when their
parents had died in a car crash, and she had made a very good job of raising
them. It wasn't surprising, seeing as she had raised four children of her
own before that. His great aunt had been one heck of a woman.
"Sanchez!" someone called out from the other side of the two-inch thick
sliding door that separated the Mechanical Engineering section from the
Vehicle Depot. Judging from the tone of the voice, it was urgent. Breathing
out heavily, Sanchez pulled the goggles from over his eyes and looked up.
"What?" he yelled back. Mechanical Engineering was the only part of CHQ
where people adressed each other at the top of their lungs. In part, it was
because of the noise the machinery emitted. The fact that the big bosses
never came down except when they had an armour affinity test also played a
part in that.
"You haven't forgotten that Amy needs a final check-up before that big-shot
sergeant guy turns up for his last test, have you?" 'Amy' was the nickname
given to the K-7 used for armour affinity tests. While a fully-functional
set of armour, Amy had been stripped of the weapon systems to allow the
future pilots to concentrate on what the test was all about: moving the damn
thing. Some people were naturally adept at moving around in armour, while
others just couldn't do it. The vast majority started off awkwardly, but
gained confidence after a few tries. Sanchez had only seen four people
capable of riding a suit of K-7 successfully on their first try. One of them
had been some nutcase straight in from the military, some twelve or fifteen
years back. Another was the 'big-shot sergeant guy' his colleague Matt had
just mentioned.
"Amy's fine, so get off my back and give me a hand with these servos, you
lazy fart!"
"No can do, amigo. My shift is over, remember? Tell Jemmy-boy to help you
once he's finished punching in"
"Jemmy-boy won't be in for another twenty minutes, which is exactly the
same amount of time left until your shift is over, so come back in here!"
"Aw man! I got a date with ma missus! I can't be late, you know how she
is!!" Sanchez snorted. Matt was right in that; his girlfriend was the
scariest woman he had ever met, except maybe for his great aunt when she got
really angry. Whatever the case, the armour was as good as fixed. It was a
simple matter of replacing some parts, just the type of thing that newbie
Jeremy was supposed to do as part of his apprenticeship. Standing up, he
went to the workbench where his lunchbox was. His wife had prepared him some
tuna and egg sandwiches for lunch, but he had been so busy he hadn't had
time to eat them yet. Now, however, was as good a time as any. On his way to
the bench he picked up a rag and wiped his hands on it.
"Matt, you lazy bast, next time, arrange your dates so they don't clash
with your working hours!"
"Cheers Sanchez! I'll see you tomorrow, and tell you all about it!"
"Heh, you forget I have a missus of my own!"
"Yeah, but mine's young and real hot!" the voice sounded fainter now.
"Heh, you don't know how my kitty purrs," he muttered to himself as he
unwrapped one of the sandwhiches. His mouth was already watering at the
prospect of much-needed food. His thoughts momentarily drifted to the latest
outfit his wife had bought, two days back, before he took the first bite.
----------
Unlike most of the inhabitants of Barcelona, driving along Barcelona's
fifth ringroad on a motorbike didn't bother Arthur Brading that much. He,
like everyone else in Barcelona, knew it was one of the high-risk areas for
motorcyclists, due to the sheer numbers of biker gangs that fought over the
outer-city ringroads, staking out their 'turf', but Brading had ridden
motorcycles since his early youth, and he knew the ringroads well enough to
avoid trouble. The ringroads' layout made them a prime spot for biker gangs
to strut their engines: the long straights, the ample curves, the sheer
number of exits that could be taken, all of these made it the ideal place
for an ambush on unsuspecting victims. The gangs found it ridiculously easy
to strike, take the parts they wanted from the wrecked bikes, and leave
before any patrol car could reach the scene of the crime. Worse still,
recent figures indicated that gang rivalries had broken into something very
close to all-out war, and more innocent by-drivers were being hit, either by
badly aimed weapons or as sources for spare parts, money, and cheap sexual
thrills. Two days ago, a car had been blown up by a grenade that had fallen
from one of the upper tracts of the ringroad, and a couple of days before
that a man had run over a young woman who had tried to wave him down to help
with her broken-down car, because he had thought it was a biker ambush. To
top it all, the bikers seemed to be crashing more bikes than they could
steal off the streets, and seemed not to be concerned about snagging lone
bikers on the ringroad and taking their bikes from under them, in the most
literal of senses.
To Brading there were various aspects of the problem which were a cause for
concern. Firstly, and most obviously, the packs of psychos that duked it out
in the city streets, blowing each other up in groups and preying on the
innocent for the resources to wage their war. Secondly, and not so
obviously, groups of well-to-do kids were forming their own gangs, either
because they thought it was the 'in-thing', to quote a well known
sociologist, or because they were so bored with their well-to-do lives that
they needed to spice things up a bit. This would have been fine if it
weren't for the fact that real biker gangs saw them as easy prey and good
bounty, and rich parents all over the town were putting pressure on the
mayor, who in turn was putting pressure on the department, to do something
about it. In the end it boiled down to the police having to pay for the fact
that the wealthy couldn't - or didn't want to, Brading was as of yet
undecided on that one - take care of their children instead of going to all
the posh parties they had in their high-rise penthouses and suburban
estates.
The third, and most pressing cause for concern, was that the biker gangs
seemd to be getting their hands on some hardware that made regulation
armaments look like water-guns. Sawn-off shotguns and high-caliber pistols
Brading had seen before, and the City Police could match those any day of
the week, but grenades, copkiller ammo and pocket flamethrowers? There was
even a rumour that one gang leader, known among bikers as "Skweal", had a
rudimentary one-shot laser mounted onto his pistol. K-4's and 7's could
probably do the trick with the better-armed gangers, but armoured units had
been, until very recently, used exclusively for Boomer cases.
Brading peered up at the sky from under his helmet. He had accepted acting
as live bait in an attempt to catch some members of a very prolific gang who
called themselves the "Red Shadows". What had led them to take such a name
he didn't know, but one of his informants had told him that they weren't as
much a biker gang as a group of vigilantes who attacked other gangs in an
attempt to rid the city streets of motorised vandals. Personally, Brading
would have tried to contact the gang in a more conventional way, to provide
the Angels with logistic support and commending them for their good work,
but orders from on-high were to arrest at least one member and bring him in
for questioning, since civilians were supposed to leave such matters to the
police. Brading had to comply with his orders, but he still thought that
organising a group of volunteers to get rid of the bikers would allow the
police to concentrate on more serious things, like rogue Boomers, which had
become a rather pressing issue in the last couple of years, and terrorrist
elements, of which Barcelona had a long, long history. He had contemplated
commenting this to the captain, but then he realised that the prospect of
Traffic Regulation for the rest of his life wasn't all that appealing. The
captain was already stressed at the fact that he didn't have hardly enough
men to keep peace in the city to listen to "foolish suggestions from gung-ho
neophytes". Captain Garcia never took any bullshit from anyone, except from
Lieutenant Furst. In fact, Furst was the only one who could say anything to
Garcia without having his badge jammed down his throat, and although Furst
was lower ranking, they seemed to have some sort of agreement, something
along the lines of "You dont interfere with my work, and I keep you in your
seat until you retire." Since Furst had arrived in Barcelona, Garcia
definitely seemd to have a less active life in the department, but he did
have mountains of paperwork to go through instead, and that kept him busy.
Not that Brading would ever say anything, seeing as he also enjoyed a
somewhat privileged status in the department. While he had only been in the
force three years, he had already made it to sergeant. On top of that, with
any luck he would be taking his last armour affinity test right after he was
through with this particular operation. He was looking forward to facing
down Boomers on roughly equal terms. Yes, he was definitely a privileged
man.
It was also true that to achieve his current position he had worked more
extra hours than any sane man would honestly consider, had unearthed new
evidence on cases which had been considered closed, and had taken on so many
"marked" cases that some people thought he was a masochist. Still, having
taken the suit affinity test after three years in the force while the
average agent had to wait closer to five was something that filled him with
pride.
As he drove along the southernmost tracts of the Fifth Ringroad, Arthur
Brading's thoughts turned to 'Amy', the armour used in the affinity tests,
waiting back in the Mechanical Engineering Department of CHQ for him to
return and take the final test. And then a thought flickered through his
mind, sending a a cold shiver down his spine; What if a suit of armour fell
into the hands of a biker gang? Or even worse, what if it fell into the
hands of terrorists? Trying to block out the thought, he glanced into the
rear-view mirror, for the first time wondering if it had been a good idea to
volunteer for this mission. He knew there was a surveillance helicopter
flying overhead in whisper mode, tracking his every move, but he wondered
how the ground team were doing.
----------
Furst dived and rolled to a crouch as the deafening sound of an explosion
roared less than a hundred metres from where he was. He looked to his right,
where the explosion had sounded, to see a cloud of smoke and flame rise
towards the overcast sky. He had already pulled his .77 Hermes on instinct,
and he leapt to his feet and began to run towards the explosion. As he went
he cursed, realising that he had no way of communicating with CHQ. He hoped
one of the Overhead Surveillance Units was flying near enough to report the
explosion quickly, before the flames spread and consumed a large portion of
the park. Gritting his teeth he spurred himself to run faster. He hoped
there were no victims, but he hoped even more it wasn't a Boomer. He had
trouble enough with them while wearing his K-12. Without it, there was
precious little he could do; he had once blown very large holes into an
armoured van with the Hermes, but he had never used it against a Boomer.
----------
"Surely you can't be serious, Mrs. President?!" Oscar Mas had placed both
hands on the table and was looking livid.
"I know its an extra burden on the budget, but you should think of it as a
short-term investment. It will save us rather a lot in the long run, in
terms of police budget dedicated to renewing the police equipment destroyed
every time one of those damned machines decides its had enough..."
"I agree in part with the Economy Counsellor, Mrs. President," Ricard de
Fontana, the Counsellor for Culture, was looking at her through his thick,
steel-rimmed glasses. His gaunt face, pale skin, and the dark circles under
his eyes made people uneasy around him, despite being a soft-spoken,
well-mannered man who had always kept a low profile. Even during the recent
campaign he had appeared little, choosing instead to take care of things
behind the scenes. His methodic work had played an important part in putting
the current President where she was. In public, she approved of almost
everything he said. In private, he was part her mentor, part her personal
advisor, and part miracle man. "Boomers are a fairly recent phenomenon in
our city, from a global perspective. What you are proposing might inspire
incidents similar to those occurred in Seoul twelve years back. It might
also increase the general dislike of people towards Boomers" the President
looked at him sternly, although he was aware that she was silently pleading
with him. "The move, however, would probably get the police back to their
jobs, and will most definitely be approved of by the citizenship,"
"With that I agree," the young brunette sitting in the chair furthest from
the president chorused. "The police will certainly be happy to leave the
dangerous cases to people who are properly equipped to face them,"
"Well, it seems to work in Tokyo, London, and all the other Megalopoli..."
An older man, with a salt-and-pepper beard and a balding head, had spoken.
"Its certainly a grave enough problem here to warrant what you suggest, Mrs.
President."
----------
Even as she listened to the reports of the other Overhead Surveillance
Units, Sylune Damian whistled happily, if softly enough to hear what was
being said. She enjoyed flying, and she enjoyed the sense of being able to
see everything that happened in the city while remaining unseen. She
couldn't really see everything, she admitted to herself sometimes, but she
could see so much it felt like everything. She especially liked doing the
night patrols; on cloudless nights she could sometimes see the stars above
and the city lights below, and she imagined a huge lake beneath her,
reflecting the starlight. Unlike many, she didn't find the city nightscape
ugly. On the contrary, the city lights gave the ground below a certain
beauty, specially in the dead of night, when there were very few cars on the
streets. There was a sense of stillness and peace which she could never even
imagine when she was on the ground below. The impending storm did little to
dampen her spirits. She had actually forgotten about the storm, and almost
everything else: she was staring at her satellite-linked surveillance
monitor, which had zoned in on what looked like an explosion near the centre
of Montjuich Park. She was effecting a zoom-in scan of the area when the
radio crackled to life, requesting her attention.
"Eagle 1-4 here. What may I do for you?" she spoke into her microphone.
"Eagle 1-4, this is Eagle Nest. Have you seen the explosion in Montjuich
Park, Sector PM21?" the radio operator's nasal voice inquired.
"Affirmative," she replied, pulling a face. I'm not blind, she thought,
sticking her tongue out at the speaker. She hated it when the staff at
control tower asked stupid and useless questions. Much to her vexation, they
seemed to ask them all the time.
"Two air units are on their way there already," a short crackle of static
burst through the speaker, making Sylune wince. "ETA less than five minutes.
We need you there to provide armed support in case of Boomer presence,"
"Roger," she replied curtly. Sylune's eyebrows had furrowed upon hearing
the word Boomer. She didn't like Boomers. The pilot of Eagle 2-2 had been
killed by a Boomer just over a week ago while attempting to provide covering
fire for withdrawing ground units.
"We need you there as soon as possible; as you no doubt know, the two
Sparrows heading for PM21 have no combat capability..." Sylune's scowl gave
way to an expression of surprise. Unlike the Eagles, which were equipped
with a 20mm rotary Vulcan, Sparrows were strictly non-combat craft, more
suited to traffic recon than possible Boomer cases. If there was a Boomer in
Montjuich Park, the Sparrows would be in it very deep.
"On my way. Over and out," she said calmly, and turned the radio off. "You
useless bunch of idiots!" she yelled, thumping the reinforced glass window
to her gloved fist. She breathed in deeply and calmed down, looking back to
the surveillance monitor. Even if there was a Boomer in the area, the fire
brigade would have to be there soon to prevent the destruction of
Barcelona's largest and oldest green spot.
"It might be the largest, but it's so small compared to what we used to
have fifteen years ago..." she muttered. Setting the chopper into a direct
route towards the park, Sylune looked to her left.
Slightly out to sea stood a black monolith that dwarfed even the tallest
skyscrapers of the central business district, looming over the city, flecked
at irregular intervals by tiny specks of light. To some of her friends, the
ones who had been force-fed Genom propaganda almost since birth, the Genom
Tower looked like a cyclopean guardian that watched over the sprawling
metropolis. Every time Sylune looked at it, however, it looked more and more
like a huge tombstone, marking some sort of mass grave.
"Let's see how this lady does against a Boomer," she muttered, and a grim
smile formed on her lips as thumbed the cap over the button that armed the
chopper's Vulcan. Her eyes betrayed a completely different emotion: she was
afraid. The smiling face of Kyle Evans flashed before her eyes. The same
Kyle Evans she had been dating for just over a month. The same Kyle Evans
who had been blown out of the sky by a rogue Boomer, much like the one she
was expecting to find in the park.
----------
A knock on the door interrupted the discussion. Everyone hushed quickly,
and all eyes turned on the President.
"Come in," she called, much to the surprise of the Counsellors. It was
unusual for the President to allow a meeting to be interrupted.
The door opened, revealing a middle-aged man with short blonde hair and
dressed in a suit. He stepped in quietly, shutting the door carefully behind
him. Crossing the room quickly, he stopped next to the President's chair and
leaned over to whisper something in her ear. She nodded mutely, and the man
walked back out as quickly and quietly as he had come in.
"Right folks, if you'll come with me, there's something I would like to
share with you," the President announced, standing up. The six Counsellors
imitated her, and followed her as she stepped out of the room.
"I wonder what she has up her sleeve this time," wondered the bearded man
out loud. De Fontana peered at him over the rim of his glasses.
"I think I can guess what it consists of," he said.
"What?" asked the bearded Counsellor of his colleague.
"The President is taking us to the movies," De Fontana replied cryptically.
----------
Furst gripped the Hermes tightly as he reached a small clearing in the
park's dense vegetation. He had slipped into the bushes and taken a shortcut
he remembered from his childhood. He had come with his parents almost every
other Sunday for a picnic. When they could, his parents would convince the
neighbours to come along, and take their children with them. That way, when
they finished eating, the adults could talk over cups of hot coffee while
the children played hide-and-seek along the length and width of the park.
Furst remembered those days well, and he remembered all the nooks and
crannies, all the concealed shortcuts. The memories of those days were among
the few good memories Furst retained. He had continued to use the shortcuts
in the park even now that he was a grown man, and was glad to find small
children hiding in all the places he remembered hiding. He still knew the
park like the palm of his own hand. He probably knew the park better then
the wardens who looked after it.
Shaking the memories of better days from his mind, Furst studied his
surroundings. Further ahead flames engulfed the greenery, bathing the place
in a fierce red light. He could feel the heat of the raging inferno from
where he stood.
Furst deducted that whoever was responsible couldn't be far away, and he
was going to pay, whether he was human or Boomer. There had been a fire in
the park before Furst was even born, and his father had explained to him
that although new trees had been planted hardly two days after the fire had
been put out, it had taken ten years for the park to regain its former
splendor. Furst was no green fanatic, but this was Montjuich Park, in a
sense it was
_his_ park, and whoever caused it the slightest harm would have
hell to pay.
And whoever was responsible would be paying up front, in hard cash.
----------
The six counsellors followed the President along the ample corridors that
led to her office, whispering among themselves. The President, in the lead,
listened in to the whispers with a smile on her face. She liked to keep her
Counsellors on their toes. After all, if they could cope with what she threw
at them, they would probably be all the better prepared if any of them was
stupid enough to commit an indiscretion which could cost her her post. Being
the first woman president in the history of Catalunya had proved a greater
challenge than she had expected. There were many out there who wanted her
out of office. The reasons were unknown to her, although she could very much
guess. Men, as a whole, feared female leaders. It was what had led so many
religions and cultures to revile women. It was probably ingrained in the
human gene.
Whatever the case, she wanted to prove to all the people of Spain that a
woman could to the job just as well, if not better, than a man. It was
unusual for a woman to be in a position of power, even if it was in a small
region of the world like Catalunya. What was important was that the
precedent had been set, and if it worked out properly, perhaps other
countries would see that there was no reason for the world to be dominated
by men.
She was only a couple of metres from the door of her office, which her aide
had left ajar, when everything started to shake. Placing her hands on the
wall and raising her high heels of the ground, she waited. Behind her, the
six Counsellors also took the earthquake with calm.
After a couple of short moments, the movement subsided. Passing a hand
through her hair, she reached her office and stepped inside.
Behind her, five of the six Counsellors were staring at her.
"Did you see that?" the brunette woman whispered. "Its almost as if she
hadn't noticed it..."
No-one else said anything, although De Fonseca watched the opening to her
pupil's office with pride.
----------
Brading became aware of the rumble of engines behind him over the roar of
his own bike. He glanced into the rear-view mirror, and gulped as his eyes
caught a group of glaring single lights. A group of bikers was catching up
on him, slowly but steadily. He looked at the handlebar of his bike, where
the red switch the Tech Engineers had added to the bike waited to be
flicked.
"Nitrogenous fuel and smokescreen in one," he remembered the techie, some
nutcase called Matt if his name-tag was to be believed, saying proudly.
Rivulets of cold sweat ran down the back of Brading's neck and along his
spine. The biker outfit he was wearing was really good at keeping the cold
wind away from his body, and Brading was feeling uncomfortably warm.
"They'll never see where you went!" the Techie had concluded, laughing at
his own joke. Brading hadn't found it funny while he had had both feet
firmly on the ground. Now that he was relying on two parallel wheels for
balance, the joke sounded even less funny. Then again, he had lots of
experience riding motorcycles. He could probably handle it, if he
concentrated.
<With any luck I'll crash through the speed barriers and get run over by a
freight,> he thought. Still, he had to go ahead with the operation. He
hadn't blown a case yet, and he wasn't about to let a smear onto his record.
"Wrigley Worm to Fisherman Joe, do you read me?" he spoke into the helmet's
built-in radio, another wonder from the lads of Mechanical Engineering. He
felt quite stupid as he tried to contact his backup, and he wondered what
had happened to good, old-fashioned codenames.
There was no answer. Brading's heart began to beat just a little bit
faster.
"Fisherman Joe, do you read me?" he said, this time slightly louder. The
prospect of facing a whole biker gang on his own didn't seem at all
appealing.
"Joe here. Get you fine, Wrigley," the voice that spoke into his ear
sounded muffled. Brading could imagine the agent with half a hamburger
stuffed into his mouth, desperately trying to swallow. He frowned, wishing
the bastard on the other end of the line would choke to death.
"This is no time for jokes, agent. Contact with Trout established and
confirmed. Be ready, I don't want this to be my last outing, okay? If I say
'Bait bitten' I want you people here before I can think
'Shit-he's-got-a-chainsaw', understand?" Brading realised he was growling
into the mike, but he didn't care. It might teach the bastard to eat while
he was on the job. Was
_he_ eating? No, he was driving a motorbike through
the only place in Barcelona where he would rather not ride a bike while
off-duty. And while he was risking his life, the bastard who held his
life-line was having a triple-grilled with cheese.
"Yes, Wrigley, we'll be there as soon as you say," the muffled voice
informed him. Brading thought he could detect an echo of sarcasm in the
words.
"And that's Mister Wrigley Sir to you, agent! Next time I hear you saying
Wrigley in that particular tone of voice, I'll make sure you have the
pleasure of directing traffic on Meridian Avenue for a week! Understand?"
Brading was shouting into his helmet, which didn't do much to put him at
ease.
"Yes, Mister Wrigley SIR!" the muffled voice sounded a lot clearer, and
there was some renewed tone of respect in there somewhere.
"Very well, standby for 'Go Fish'," said Brading, a lot calmer, but feeling
equally stupid. His lips curled up into a mean smile. "And whatever it is
you're eating, get rid of it, now" he added with finality.
"Roger," came the reply. Brading thought he heard paper rustling, but it
could have been static.
"Over and out,"
"Fisherman Joe out," replied the agent, and the radio fell silent.
Brading sighed, partly with relief and partly with contempt. <Stupid
bastards,> he thought. <One of these days they'll get me killed.> He smiled
to himself. Sometimes he felt he should be mean old Sergeant Brading all the
time, if only to keep the lower-ranking agents in check. But he had realised
that being only moderately tough most of the time, and having bursts of
'Bastard Brading' spontaneously had a much greater effect. Still, it was a
nuisance, not being able to display human emotions while he worked, and he
didn't really like playing the mean sergeant part. Not showing his emotions
except to criticise and harrass others made him feel extremely negative, and
it built up the stress after short periods of time. Still it worked, and if
someone went over the line and needed to get his butt kicked, he would allow
no-one to do it but himself.
He glanced into the rear view mirror. After a moment's realisation, he
gulped.
The bikers were less that ten metres away from him. And it wasn't the Red
Shadows. His informant had told him that the Shadows all wore similar style
clothing: jeans, T-shirts, and leather jackets with a strange angel motif on
the back. It was a type of uniform. The bikers he had behind him were all
dressed in garish, clashing clothes of all styles, colours, and materials.
They looked like they were on their way to the award ceremony for Worst
Dressed Person of the Millenium. And, to say the truth, each and every one
of them deserved to win.
Brading's heart jumped again as he realised he had stumbled upon entirely
the wrong group of people. These were the Jester Gang. From what he'd heard
on the streets, if they caught him the best thing that could happen to him
was to fall off the bike and break his neck. Word was that the Jester gang
were a group of utter psychopaths who never even bothered keeping a low
profile. Their reputation was worse than that of the Suicide Boomers, and
the 'Boomers were known throughout the city, if not the country. Even though
the 'Boomers were famed for the brutality of their killings, at least death
was swift. The Jester gang supposedly gang-raped their victims, regardless
of gender, while slowly killing them using various methods perfected through
trial and error. If they caught you, the best you could do was pray.
Brading yanked the throttle back as far as it would go, and the motorbike's
engine responded by letting out a thunderous roar. He had never been a
believer, so praying would have been rather useless anyway, seeing as he had
never been to church in his life, and thus didn't even know the words.
Instead he did the next best thing.
"Wrigley Worm to Fisherman Joe! Abort operation! Repeat: Abort operation
and get your butts here now! I have the bloody Jesters chewing the rubber
off my back wheel! I'm hitting Nitro and turning out of the Ringroad into
city streets as soon as I can,"
"Affrimative! Trawl Net being dispatched. ETA..." began the agent on the
other end of the radio.
"JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GET YOUR ASSES HERE NOW!" he roared into the
helmet.
"Yessir!" came the reply.
"If I don't make it out of this my ghost will come back to haunt you until
they lock you up in the darkest cell of a forgotten asylum and throw away
the bloody key!" Brading was still screaming into the helmet at the top of
his lungs.
"Operation aborted. Trawl Net preparing for intercept. Over and out,"
Brading was no longer listening. He was bracing himself in anticipation of
the Nitro boost. He hoped he would make it alive. The Jesters, however,
seemed to have plans for him. They had already drawn an assortment of
chains, bats, and other weapons, and were moving in for what they probably
thought would be an easy kill.
"Think again, suckers..." hissed Brading under his breath, and flicked the
switch on the handlebar as he eased up the throttle, allowing the volatile
nitrogen-compound fuel to flow into the engine. He changed gears and pulled
hard on the throttle, and the bike's roar went in crescendo once more. His
bike screamed and with a sudden bounce lurched forward. Brading was
hard-pressed to stabilise the bike while clinging on for dear life. A quick
look into the rear view mirror showed that the smokescreen had gone off,
enveloping the whole Jester gang in choking black smoke. He thought he heard
the screech of burning rubber and the Jesters swearing, but the roar of his
bike's twin engines, his helmet, and the screeching wind soon drowned the
cacophony of insults directed at him. The only sound he could hear
distinctively was the thumping of his heart in his temples.
About a click behind him, a police APC turned abruptly into the ringroad.
Its side doors were pulled wide open, revealing two officers in K-4 suits of
Mobile Armour preparing to leap out the moment the bikers were sighted.
Meanwhile, the Jesters were still in pursuit, having cleared the
smokescreen.
---------
The six Counsellors looked in awe at the unusual chaos the President's
personal study was in. A vast mess of wires was strewn everywhere, and all
the furniture had been pushed against the walls. On the President's table, a
large projector was humming faintly next to three laptops. Dark cloth had
been draped over the curtains, leaving the halogen lamps as the only source
of illumination for the room. In front of the windows, a large projection
screen had been unrolled. Six chairs awaited the Counsellors; the President
was already sitting in the centre chair, the one from where the screen was
best seen.
"Come on, folks, have a seat; the show is about to begin," she urged them.
The six Counsellors complied as fast as they could, and the blonde aide
readied the projector. A few moments later, the lights of the study were
turned off, and the projector started functioning with a low hum.
A series of computer-generated maps of the city flickered on the screen.
The spectators could hear the aide typing away frantically at the keyboard.
After a few moments, the maps were substituted by a fairly decent image of
Montjuich Park. Gasps were heard as someone among the audience of the
impromptu showing realised that the park was ablaze.
"That, folks, is Montjuich Park. The Central Police Headquarters has just
received word that the blaze might be the work of a Boomer,"
"Why are you showing us this?"
"I'll explain later. For now, just watch..." the President turned to adress
her aide. "Eddie, where's the sound?"
"I'm working on it, Ma'am," came the aide's reply. It was a matter of
seconds before two short bursts of very loud static gave way to what seemed
to be a conversation taking place over a two-way radio.
---------
Sylune overflew the park boundaries, heading to the spot where the column
of flames danced skyward. Her eyes stared unseeing at the flames, her mind
racing with thoughts of things she would do when she found out who was
responsible. Clearing her head, she engaged the two-way.
"Eagle 1-4 to Eagle Nest. Eagle 1-4 to Eagle Nest. Do you read me, Eagle
Nest?"
"This is Eagle Nest, we read you loud and clear. Have you confrimed Boomer
activity in PM21?"
"Negative, Nest. I haven't been able to close in yet. Requesting
firefighter support in Montjuich Park. Priority Code Alpha."
"Please repeat, Eagle 1-4, did you just say Alpha?"
"Affirmative. Code Alpha,"
"Eagle 1-4, Code Alpha is reserved for city-wide disasters..." Sylune
rolled her eyes, wondering how the guy at Surveillance Control could be so
dense.
"Eagle Nest, considering the location of the fire, I think Code Alpha
doesn't even begin to cut the mustard..." She replied, speaking as she would
to her four year-old nephew.
"Eagle 1-4, this is Surveillance Tower Command," Sylune winced as she
recognised the voice that was now speaking to her. It was comander Montfort,
Head of Surveillance Operations, and big trouble when he wanted to be, which
was usually all the time. "Firefighters were dispatched three minutes ago.
Resume your surveillance immediately. If there's a Boomer in the Park when
the firefighters get there, it could all turn rather messy in a very short
period of time, and if that happens I'll hold you personally responsible,"
Sylune grimaced. Commander Montfort was renowned for maintaining his smooth
tone of voice even when he was seething. If he had heard Sylune's
conversation with the operator, she was probably in deep shit when she
returned to HQ. She hadn't missed how he had imitated the tone of voice she
had used with the Comms Operative either.
"Roger," she replied. "Resuming surveillance. Eagle 1-4 out,"
"Eagle Nest out," replied Montfort. Sylune turned the two-way off.
"Well, that's that," sighed Sylune. "Now for some Boomer-hunting," With her
free hand she tapped the side of her helmet, and the targetting visor came
down over her bright green eyes. If she found a Boomer, she desperately
wanted to be the first one to fire. And image of Clint Eastwood facing down
the bad guy in some ancient spaghetti western flashed before her eyes, but
she shook it away and focused alternately on the monitoring screens and the
raging fire beneath her.
----------
Furst was seething as he carefully picked his way around the slowly
expanding blaze. As he went he gazed at the blackened skeletons of the trees
as they burned and leaves fell to the floor like moths that had strayed too
near to a naked flame. He released the safety latch on his gun, and
approached a tall hedge that blocked his view. Gunfire echoed loudly through
the air, and he ducked, waiting for a couple of moments while he figured out
that the shots had sounded on the other side of the hedge and hadn't been
aimed at him. Examining the greenery closely, he found a place where the
branches were thinner than elsewhere, and he crept through the space. As he
went further in, the branches returned to their original positions, closing
behind him.
As he crept through the hedge, Furst peered through the spaces between the
foliage. Beyond the hedge was the warden's building, a small, squat affair
that blended in fairly well with the rest of the park. In front of it stood
one of the park wardens and a boomer, face to face, hardly three metres
between them. The red and amber light from the fire behind him gave the
scene an unreal quality that made Furst doubt what he was seeing. As he
watched, hypnotised, the warden pulled off another couple of shots. The
Boomer remained unscathed, and the man stared at it, desperation in his
eyes. He aimed the gun a bit higher, possibly at the Boomer's head. The
Boomer cocked its head sideways, as if it felt curious as to what the human
was going to try next, or perhaps questioning the use of the warden's
actions. Furst looked on. He had stopped moving.
Suddenly, the Boomer leapt at the warden and grabbed his head in its
enormous metallic claws. The man screamed and dropped the gun in surprise,
then came to his senses and slammed both hands against the Boomer's bulging
forearm. Furst could see the Boomer's huge arm-muscles rippling, like those
of real humans. The man's screams became louder and more frantic as the
pressure on his skull increased, until finally his head exploded, and the
headless corpse fell to the ground in a shower of blood and gore. Furst's
stomach lurched as he saw bits of bone and brain dribble through the
Boomer's claws and onto the ground. For the first time, Furst wondered what
had happened to the other wardens, and a quick scan of the area showed him
two other bodies, both sporting open quadruple slashes across their chests.
A bit further off, the fourth warden's charred body lay smouldering. Enraged
beyond limits, Furst stood up and stepped out of the bush. The Boomer didn't
seem to notice him, so he shouted at it to draw its attention.
"Hey, you canned mountain of shit! Over here!"
The Boomer turned around slowly, its body emitting metallic whirring sounds
as it acknowledged the presence of another potential enemy. Tiny sensors on
small stalk-like protuberances flicked to life around the monster's eyes,
scanning for more information on the new threat. Furst knew what the Boomer
was doing; one of the first things he had learnt in the police department
was that rogue Boomers saw everything that confronted them as enemies. Furst
raised his gun so it was level with the monster's chest.
"I'm gonna teach you to burn down the city's lung, you piece of shit. This
park is the only thing that keeps the air in this place breathable..." he
growled. The Boomer's only response was a soft sound that reminded Furst of
a purring cat. It's mouth seemed to curl up into a grin, although Furst
couldn't be sure if the thing was really smiling or if it was just a trick
of the fickle light shed by the burning trees around them. Letting out a
snarl of anger, he put his free hand on the Hermes and braced himself for
the weapon's recoil, letting out a single shot. The gun kicked back in his
hands, letting loose a deafening roar. The right half of the Boomer's body
jerked backwards with the bullet's impact, but Furst could see that the
thing was unscathed. Gnashing his teeth Furst pressed the trigger again and
again until he had expended the five bullets in the Hermes' drum. With each
shot the Boomer jerked backwards, looking almost like a puppet in the hands
of an inept puppeteer. The last shot blew it clean off its feet, and it fell
to the ground on its back. Furst snapped the gun open and dropped the empty
bullet casings into his hand, putting them in his pocket. Pulling out a
quick reload drum, he reloaded the gun as he walked closer to the fallen
Boomer, training his gun on it once it was reloaded.
From closer up, Furst saw that the bullets had dented the Boomer's armoured
skin, and a thick black liquid was oozing from two of the wounds. He could
still hear faint whirring sounds, which meant that despite the damage the
Boomer was still active. Without wasting a moment, Furst aimed the gun at
the Boomer's head, where its 'brain' was. As he aimed down the barrel to a
point between the Boomer's eyes, the chrome barrel of the gun went out of
focus as the Boomer's mouth opened. Furst stared into the black hole for a
moment before seeing something come out of the Boomer's mouth. He watched
the circle of darkness as it emerged, and he realised the Boomer was
pointing a weapon at him, a weapon which had been hidden inside its mouth
until now, a weapon Furst had never seen before. Instinctively diving to one
side, Furst let off the shot he had been aiming at the Boomer. Following
Furst's dive, the Boomer let loose a huge blast of light that went right
through Furst's right arm. Furst let out a scream as he felt the skin and
flesh shrivel and burn, the blood boil, the bones calcify. He fell to the
ground and dropped his weapon, howling and cradling the already cauterized
wound. He wouldn't be bleeding to death anytime soon, but the pain was
excruciating. Realisation hit him like a bucket of cold water, and he
stopped screaming abruptly, gazing at where his hand should have been, then
at where his hand lay, still attached to his arm up to the biceps, holding
the Hermes so tight that the knuckles were white. It couldn't be. He could
still feel his arm, attached to his shoulder. He felt it open and close as
his brain sent the impulse, but the limb on the floor remained lifeless and
still. Desperately, he reached out for the gun, trying to pry the fingers of
his severed hand from around the gun without letting it off.
As he pried one of the fingers open, he looked to where the Boomer had been
lying, saw that it was making efforts to stand up. Furst wondered why it was
having so much difficulty, trying not to think about the fact that he was
prying his gun out of his own hand. Even if he had been thinking about it,
he was going into shock, and his brain was having trouble registering
things. Images of his childhood flashed before his eyes while he continued
to fumble with the dismembered limb on the ground and the weapon it held in
its dead grip.
Stiffly, the Boomer reached a crouching position, then slowly stood up
revealing that one of it's legs had had a large chunk blown out of it. So
they were still even. An arm for a leg, or almost. Furst finally freed the
gun, and aimed it at the Boomer.
Suddenly, a spotlight shone into the clearing, and the roar of rotor blades
made itself heard above the din of the flames. Furst shielded his eyes from
the blinding glare, trying to see if the chopper was just a recon or if it
was one of the AD Eagles. He cursed as he saw the helicopter's unarmed
muzzle. Another one was right behind it. He saw the Boomer staring at the
choppers, mouth wide open.
"Get the fuck out of here and get some backup, you idiots!! You're
gonna..." the Boomer finished the phrase for him by firing its mouth cannon
at the nearest chopper. The beam cut through the metal with ease, and the
chopper was engulfed in a roaring ball of flame as the fuel deposit
exploded. The remaining chopper got the message and hovered higher and
higher, then turned tail and was gone. Bits of metal showered into the
trees, and the main body of the chopper promptly followed with a crash.
Another blaze started where it had fallen, and it spread quickly to the
nearby trees and undergrowth.
The Boomer, as if to continue an interrupted conversation, turned towards
Furst.
A shot hit it as its head turned, blowing off part of its jaw. Another bit
off a chunk of armour from its neck, revealing the living tissue underneath,
pumping insanely, black blood spurting from the wound. The other shot missed
the back of it's head by inches. The Boomer held a hand up to it's exposed
flesh, drew it back bloodied. Then it shuddered, staggered forward, and
finally stood up semi-straight again.
Holding the smoking Hermes in his trembling hand, Furst realised that he
had scored a killing shot: it was only a matter of time until the Boomer
collapsed. Luckily, the heat of the Boomer's mouth cannon had cauterised the
stump of his arm. The only time limit on him was how long he could last
before succumbing to the strange games his mind was playing with him. Almost
as if on cue, the world began to go out of focus, the Boomer quickly
becoming a blue smudge on the wild background of reds, yellows and oranges
that was the burning park around them.
He only hoped that the Boomer's cannon was disabled. If it was, he could
survive. Without another thought, he began to drag himself away from the
Boomer. He had to get as far away from it as possible. It was dying, and it
would probably want to take him with it.
If only the cannon was disabled.
The darkness embraced him before he could find out.
----------
Jeremy slid his card through the reader at the entrance of the Police
Department, placed his schoolbag in the 'seethrough box', and crossed the
black arc of the metal detector. Retrieving his bag, he greeted the two
officers at the front desk, and stepped into the corridor that led to the
lift that would take him down to the Mechanical Engineering department.
After changing into his blue greasemonk coveralls, he went straight to Mech
Eng, without stopping by the drinks machine as he usually did. He didn't
feel particularly thirsty. All he wanted to do was get his hands into some
machinery and let go of everything.
"Hey there, Jemmy-boy!" Sanchez called out as Jeremy crossed the doorway
that separated the aseptically clean Police Department from the
hell-on-earth chaos of the Mechanical Engineering Department. At first
Jeremy was unable to spot the veteran mechanic, but after a second look he
saw the rotund man's legs peeping out from behind a suit of armour that was
hanging from the crane-like support that hung from the ceiling. Jeremy got
the unnerving impression that he was looking at a side of beef hanging from
a meathook, and quickly looked away.
"Hey, Sanchez," he replied unenthusiastically. Sanchez seemed not to
notice.
"I need to give Amy a final lookover before going home. Can you take care
of the servos on this?" the apprentice mechanic finally realised that
Sanchez wasn't actually working on the armour, but examining while he chewed
heavily on something. The sound of something receiving a bite drove the
point home.
"Sure thing, Sanchez. I'll get right to it," he said as he made his way
towards the armour. Sanchez finally came fully into view. He was sitting
down, squeezing some orange juice out of a bottle and into his mouth. After
swallowing, he let out a loud 'Ahh' of satisfaction.
"Cheers. I'll get to work on Amy once I'm through with this." he said, a
glint in his eyes. "Not that things aren't absolutely fine back home, but
Amy needs a thorough seeing to before she meets that Big Shot Sergeant guy
again tonight." Jeremy remembered witnessing how the sergeant, Brading, if
he remembered rightly, had breezed through the initiation affinity test,
skipped the secondary test with the approval of Captain Garcia, and done
exceedingly well in the Advanced test...
Suddenly, Jeremy pulled a face, glaring at Sanchez a split second later. He
shook his head and his eyes rolled in their sockets.
"Sanchez, I've only just come in..." he complained wearily. Sanchez forced
a grin out of his mouth, instead shaking his head as he pretended to be
disappointed.
"Jemmy-boy, you really ought to loosen up... We aren't in the middle-ages
any more. Women..."
"Deserve some respect," he interrupted him. "I'd prefer it if you shared
your jokes with Matt, and left me out of it..." he said sternly. "Now, if
you don't mind, I'll see if I can get some work done: I'm leaving early
today."
"You finally got a date?" Sanchez grinned wickedly. Jeremy half-pulled a
face at him.
"She's just a friend..." he muttered back.
"Ha!" Sanchez called as he walked away to 'Amy's Room', the corner where
Amy was stowed away. "That's what
_you_ think. Even as we speak, she's
probably scheming an evil plot to seduce you and get into your..."
"SANCHEZ!!" Jeremy shouted at him in outrage, which elicited a loud bout of
laughter from the older man. Jeremy breathed in deeply, then let the air out
of his lungs. He had completely forgotten about schooltests, and a hint of a
smile had even appeared on his lips, despite the fluster on his cheeks.
----------
Sylune muttered under her breath as she piloted the chopper over the trees
to where the billowing clouds of black smoke met the roaring inferno. The
other recon choppers were already there, and she was listening to the radio,
enraptured.
"Contact established. One Boomer, and it seems like... Dear God, it's
Lieutenant Furst! He seems to be injured! Wait, he's trying to..." a blast
of static took over the main channel, making Sylune wince.
"Sparrow 7, come in, sparrow 7." Sylune shook her head. A second later, the
other pilot confirmed her suspicion.
"This is sparrow 4. Sparrow 7 shot down. Taking evasive action. Request
immediate eagle backup, and an ambulance for the lieutenant"
"Eagle 1-4 on the case, " said Sylune into the helmet's mike. "I'll handle
this, sparrow 4. Eagle 1-4 out." she shut the radio off, and maneuvred the
chopper into a position from where she could fire at the Boomer. She
realised she was trembling, and she breathed in deeply.
"Steady, girl," she reprimanded herself.
----------
Brading drove along the ringroad, relieved to have left the Jesters far
behind, and possibly in a mess. The backup unit was probably catching up
with them now, and that would be the end of that. The K-4's shouldn't have
too many problems arresting a couple of Jesters, and if the bikers resisted
the armoured units had instructions to fire at will. It was brutal, but
there was no other choice: Armoured agents couldn't take chances: if a suit
of armour fell into the hands of a gang, things would get ugly very soon.
His thoughts were interrupted by the voice of Alex Montfort over the radio.
"CHQ to all units. CHQ to all units. A Boomer has run amok on Muntaner
Street. It is heading up towards Diagonal Avenue. This is a priority code
Beta. Repeat, this is a priority code Beta."
Brading shifted gears and hit the nitro switch again. The bike lifted
itself onto its back wheel for a second, but Brading was ready for it. He
leaned forward onto the bike to balance it, and ripped off down the
secondary skyway, eyes peeled for the 13th exit.
----------
As she drew closer to the fire, which was spreading fast due to the high
winds, Sylune watched the trees below, trying to locate the Boomer through
the clouds of smoke. As she approached, the main rotor of her vehicle blew
away the obscuring smoke to reveal a clearing under her chopper. The Boomer
was there, but the lieutenant was nowhere to be seen. Her eyes narrowed.
Whispered words escaped, hissing, from her lips, a reflex in which her brain
had no part. "This is for Kyle, bluey..." Her thumb flicked the cap off the
Vulcan's trigger.
The Boomer turned its head slowly upwards, emitting a mechanical roar.
Sylune didn't think: she pressed the trigger hard. The Vulcan roared flames
as it spat death at the Boomer, making it dance like a crazed club-goer on
acid. Sylune looked away, pulled her finger away from the trigger, the
Boomer thumped to the ground, riddled with holes that oozed a thick black
liquid. It's dead eyes stared at the flames as they danced around it. Sylune
looked at the dead Boomer as cold beads of sweat began to slide down her
forehead, and there was a knot in her throat. Finally managing to gulp it
down, she turned on the radio. She felt a sudden cold growing in her
stomach, an emptiness that filled her. She had expected something more,
perhaps, but she gave thanks for not having been fired upon.
"Eagle 1-4 to CHQ." she said, just loud enough to be heard over the radio.
"Loud and clear, Eagle 1-4" came Montfort's voice.
"Target destroyed. One Sparrow down. Coast is clear for firefighters." she
looked at where the Boomer lay, motionless, like a broken puppet.
"Good work, Eagle 1-4. Another Boomer is making its way up Muntaner towards
Diagonal Avenue. Eagles 1-1 and 2-4 are in pursuit. We have cut off the
third sector of the Diagonal to prevent harm to civilians, but we need you
to help herd it towards a trap that we've set up for it in DA03. Please
confirm,"
"Confirmed, CHQ," she replied, suddenly feeling very tired. "I'm on my way.
Is that ambulance coming? I haven't seen the lieutenant anywhere. He could
be dying out here..."
"Ambulance will arrive with the fire-fighters, ETA less than two minutes."
"Roger. Over and out."
Turning the chopper around, Sylune sighed. She looked at the clock on her
cockpit console. She'd only been on the shift for two hours. Still another
couple of hours before she returned to CHQ, and then another couple taking
care of paperwork. After that she could go home. She raised a hand to her
temple and shook her head. She was feeling decidedly ill.
"It's going to be one of those nights, isn't it?" she muttered with a sigh,
and set the chopper on a course towards Diagonal Avenue. As she went, she
focused the surveillance camera on the eliminated Boomer and took a few
minutes of footage as she stared at the monitor. No doubt when she got back
to HQ the rest of the pilots would congratulate her for scratching the first
notch on her tally.
----------
"Well, folks, what did you think?"
The President stood in front of the screen. Her six Counsellors were
aghast. They had just witnessed, through a patch-up connection to a police
monitoring satellite, the execution of a Boomer, but not before it had
managed to destroy a recon helicopter, as well as setting the city' largest
park ablaze. A couple of them, mainly Oscar Mas and the petite brunette,
were decidedly having trouble maintaining control of their bodily functions.
"I..." began Oscar Mas.
"With this, I hope to have convinced you all about just how badly this city
needs an Advanced Defense Police Departement. That's all for tonight, folks.
Go home, eat light, sleep well, and be back here tomorrow morning. I want to
start working on this at nine-thirty sharp, so have your breakfasts at
home."
----------
Gotoki Kaji terminated the connection and rubbed his eyes wearily. He had
been right, after all: he hadn't liked what he had seen one bit. After
shutting down the computer, he pressed the buttons that cleared it off the
table, and dragged the heavy folder closer to him. With his other hand, he
pressed one of the buttons on the intercom.
"Yes, Mr. President," came Kimori's voice.
"The meeting is over, Kimori,"
"I'll be there straight away, Mr. President."
Turning the intercom off, Kaji swivelled his chair so that he was once more
looking out at the city nightscape. The President of the Generalty had
revealed her cards now. Not only that, she had raised the ante a fair bit.
Kaji stifled a yawn. He could match and raise, no problem. If he played his
cards right, he could even force her out of the match.
----------
Brading turned into Diagonal Avenue, engines roaring as he made his way
through the afternoon traffic as it parted reluctantly to let him pass.
Muntaner was a good distance further along, but now that he was on Diagonal
it would be a matter of scarce minutes before he got to the point of
conflict. As he went, the Sparrow that had been keeping tabs on him during
the ganger-fishing operation was keeping him up-to-date on the Boomer's
progress. The two way in his helmet wasn't up for anything more than that.
Dodging a car that was taking too long to pull to the side, Brading called
the Sparrow for an update.
"Boomer reported to have made it to Diagonal, and is..." the pilot stopped
short.
"Come in, Sparrow," Brading called. He went straight through Francesc Macia
square, taking advantage of the fact that traffic was particularly sluggish.
"Its gone into L'Illa shopping mall, sergeant, most probably to evade
Eagles 1-1 and 2-3,"
"What are the ground teams doing?" he barked. At the speed he was going, he
could probably make it to L'Illa in a couple of minutes, as long as people
kept out of his way.
"Mall security are on the case, and two patrol cars are within one minute
of the mall."
Brading cursed under his breath. Whoever had come up with the ambush plan
had blown it big time.
----------
The Boomer slammed through the great glass windows of the shopping mall,
sending hundreds of shards of glass flying everywhere. People panicked,
stampeding towards the exits and spreading chaos as people tripped or where
shoved, and goods where knocked from their shelves - either by stumbling
escapees or those quick-thinkers who had the idea of grabbing a couple of
freebies as they went. One of these was unfortunate enough to be partially
vaporised as the Boomer reacted instinctively to the madness around it and
let loose with its mouth-mounted laser cannon. One of the security agents
who had been headed towards the origin of the disturbance witnessed how the
shoplifter was engulfed by the weapon's beam and his charred body slumped to
the ground. With a shriek he dropped his gun and joined the stampede,
telling himself that his salary didn't warrant facing down that sort of
firepower.
Within moments, the Boomer was alone in the mall, surrounded by the insane
chorus of the security alarms and the sound of helicopter rotors, which was
quickly gaining intensity. The sensors mounted around its eyes scanned the
immediate area for further threats, and then it moved slowly into the depths
of the building, seeking shelter from its pursuers.
Across the street, a lone figure watched the Boomer from the shadows.
----------
"Repeat that, Eagle Nest." Sylune glanced momentarily at her GPS monitor,
correcting her course.
"The Boomer has gone into L'Illa shopping mall. Civillians are being
evacuated. No data on casualties yet. Eagles 1-1 and 2-3 are watching the
exits. Four ground units are pulling up right now... Wait a second..."
"What? Come in, Nest!" Sylune almsot yelled. What the hell was going on?
"Eagle 1-1 reports someone has entered the mall, but hasn't been able to
catch them on the camera."
"What?!" Sylune gasped. "What the-!"
"Eagle 1-4, Montfort here. Ambush aborted. You may resume your regular
patrol,"
"But..." Sylune began, then changed her mind. She had had enough action for
the rest of the week. The image of the Boomer as she shot it to bits was
still etched into her mind, and it seemed it wouldn't be going until she got
back home and slept over it several times.
"No buts, pilot," Montfort insisted.
"Understood..." she said uneasily. Despite her malaise, she was still
somewhat curious as to how this case developed. "Commander?" she asked
tentatively.
"Yes, pilot?" came the reply. The voice was as always, serene, almost
devoid of even the inflexion required to make its words a question. Sylune
gave up completely.
"No, nothing," she finally said, closing her eyes, breathing out heavily.
"Eagle 1-4 out."
"Nest out." Montfort replied, and the two-way went dead. She turned the
chopper and headed back to resume her patrol. She felt numb, as if someone
had pulled a thick drape over her mind.
----------
"Kaye, I'm in, but there's no sign of the Boomer..."
"Its prolly lookin' for an escape route that don't involve goin' back
outside. Try the escalator down into the mall parkin' lot."
"Roger,"
"Be careful, Yzrann. This ain't training no more."
"I will, don't you doubt that for a sec,"
----------
The sound of sirens and the muffled sound of chopper rotors in whisper mode
filled Brading's ears as he pulled the bike to a stop next to one of the
larger entrances to L'Illa shopping mall. Close to half a dozen patrol cars
were parked haphazardly on the sidewalk, and officers in uniform came and
went, relaying messages, keeping onlookers out of the way, and generally
creating an atmosphere of hectic activity. Before he had managed to draw the
attention of any of them, an armoured police APC screeched to a halt close
by, narrowly missing one of the gnarled trees that adorned the pavement.
Some twenty-odd officers in combat gear poured out of the vehicle, taking
positions near the parked patrol cars.
One of the last men out of the APC Brading recognised; sergeant Vern Torres
was slightly taller than Brading, with receding brown hair, a horse-brush
moustache, and brown eyes that were ever narrowed, as if the man had trouble
focusing on distant objects. Being the highest ranking officer he had seen
so far, Brading decided that Torres was the man to talk to.
"Hey, Vern!" he called out, readjusting his shoulder holster beneath the
leather biker jacket he was wearing. Torres, who had been examining the mall
in front of them, turned his head at the sound of his first name. His eyes
were, as usual, narrowed, with noticeable dark rings beneath them. He took a
deep breath, causing the stiff fabric of his armoured jacket to groan
slightly.
"Brading!" the taller man called out ethusiastically. "You been invited to
this bug-hunt too, or are you gatecrashing someone else's party again?"
"You could say I've been invited; I was fishing for gangers on the
ringroad, but things went to rat-shit and I got told to get my butt over
here,"
"Well, the more we are the merrier. Who knows, I might even be lucky enough
to witness your last action in the Corps..." Torres let out a stiff laugh.
Brading just grinned.
"So, what's it look like?" he asked after Torres had finished appreciating
his own humour. "I heard there's just one runaway Boomer,"
"That's right, just one measly blue bastard, and twenty two guys itching to
tear its head off and play footy with it," Torres replied. "I would say
twenty-three, but then again, I don't know if you count as a guy..." Torres
added snidely. Brading ignored the taunt; he had known Torres long enough to
learn that ignoring his comments was the best way to put an end to them.
Torres was, in general, harmless, although his humour left much to be
desired. In some aspects, he was a bit of a bully, although Brading knew
that Torres had it in for him more out of envy than anything else. Brading
couldn't, however, avoid thinking that, while he might make captain some
day, Torres would be forever stuck being one of those sergeants who got to
participate in all the worst operations. In Brading's rookie days in the
Corps, the nickname 'Shoveller' had always floated around Torres, and he
didn't seem to mind. It was only when one particularly dense agent actually
let slip the first word of the nickname, the one that had, until then,
remained out of Torres's earshot, that he had stopped approving of it, and
rather violently at that.
For a moment it seemed like Torres was going to add something, but just
then one of the men who had come out of the APC behind him hurried by,
stopping just long enough to profer a ceramide alloy breastplate to Sergeant
Torres, who promptly pulled a sour face and took the piece of armour,
shoving it quickly in Brading's direction. "You want one of these?" Brading
nodded, took it, and changed without saying a word. The garment smelled
faintly of old sweat, was rather stiff over the biker jacket, and hampered
his arm movements slightly, but he ignored the minor discomfort; ceramics
was second only to ablative when one faced a Boomer.
Meanwhile, Torres was watching as the cops who had arrived with him got
ready to go into the mall. Taking one last look at Brading, who was
adjusting the weight of the breastplate by shrugging his shoulders a few
times, Torres snorted softly to himself.
"Okay now, I think everone's set," he announced. "Come along and watch some
real men in action, Brading."
"Coming," was the only reply he got. Torres didn't even seem to acknowledge
him, beacuse he had started to bark out orders.
----------
"Got him, Kaye. One of the ventilation shafts on the ground's been torn
open,"
"I know,"
"Huh?"
"Freeman beat ya to it,"
"WHAT?! Freeman's here too?"
"That's a-righty. Has a full two minutes lead on you,"
"Damn!"
----------
The squad moved like a single entity, covering all possible attack angles
and moving into the mall like a wave washing over the beach. In less than a
minute, they had covered half of the first floor. In four they found the
open ventilation shaft. In six they were moving along the mall's underground
ventilation complex, between the rocking foundations that rendered the
building quake-proof. Eight minutes after entering the mall they had moved
into the secondary maintenance tunnels of Barcelona's subway.
And all the time, Brading had to fight his own nerves and Torres's annoying
banter.
----------
"Game over, Yzrann. Freeman wasted it, so get yo' ass home. I'm sendin' you
the best route now,"
"Oh man, I'm never gonna make it out of training if I keep getting Freeman
as my opponent,"
"Maybe you should be happy he got to it first. A Boomer don't need more
than a few secs to vaporise ya."
"Still, I'd be happy for a
_chance_. All I need to do is catch it before
Freeman does..."
"Without
_it_ catchin' you, of course,"
"Well, yes, but..."
"Quit whinin' and get outta there. There's cops all over ya,"
"Roger. Moving out."
"Freeman says 'Better luck next time',"
----------
Brading finally managed to push his way through the crowd of cops that had
clambered onto the subway rails. Word had been given to the two nearest
subway stations to stop all incoming traffic indefinitely when one of the
lead agents had seen what Brading was now looking at: the remains of the
Boomer, almost unrecognisable, had it not been for the fact that the head
had been torn off and kicked away from the rails. The body itself had been
utterly devastated, although how would remain a mystery until Ballistics and
Forensics got to work on the remains.
"What a disappointment, hey?" Torres called after him once Brading had
cleared away from the crowd. "I was looking forward to putting a few dents
in that bluey's armour..."
"It looks like someone, or something, was faster than you,"
"Odd that... I mean, who would be psycho enough to take on a rogue Boomer,
and hard enough to actually beat it. It wasn't one of ours, that's for
sure," Brading stopped walking away, turned back to Torres, his eyes
narrowed in an expression very similar to the one Torres wore perennially on
his face.
"In that, and for the first time long since, I have to agree with you,"
----------
Pausing for breath as he reached the third landing of his block of flats,
Jeremy looked at his watch. It was half-past eight, which gave him
twenty-five minutes to have a shower and get changed. Living bang in the
centre of the old city definitely had its advantages. He had moved in right
before the end of term, after arguing a long case with his parents against
commuting every morning from their suburb home. Convincing them had been
difficult, but he had managed to do so in time, and was now living in a
small rented flat, on his own.
Pulling out his keys, he went up the last set of stairs before he reached
the door to his lair, and he fumbled for a moment before managing to open
the door. He heard the sounds of a door opening on the floor above him as he
stooped to pick up his mail. More than anything he had bills, but there was
a small envelope from his mother. He chatted with his father almost every
night on the computer, but his mother still preferred to write letters and
use the phone. She had never liked computers, according to his father,
although the exact reason remained a mystery.
Hearing sounds of footfalls on the stairs, he turned around to see who it
was, and he almost dropped his mail. It was the girl from the flat directly
above his. She lived with her parents, didn't talk much, and was rather
pretty, in Jeremy's opinion: She had long, wavy hair, black with pink tips,
a slightly freckled face, and a not-at-all unattractive figure. Today she
was wearing a blue three-quarters jacket over a white blouse and black
flares. Jeremy gulped. He had never exchanged more than a couple of phrases
with her at any one time, but he had been wanting to for a long time.
"Hi there," she said as she walked past him, smiling at him. She hadn't
even said it with the usual indifferent air with which one generally greeted
neighbours. To Jeremy, it felt like she had been waiting for him to return
home to leave her house. She had even smiled at him, and
_that_ was a first.
He suppressed a shudder, barely managing to contain the impulse of leaping
into his flat and slamming the door behind him.
"Go-good evning," he forced himself to stammer, and winced. It always
happened to him. He could never maintain control when he talked to her. It
was as if she released some pheromone into the air that made all his bodily
functions go haywire.
As she went down the stairs, she looked up at him one last time, and Jeremy
thought he saw her wink at him. He dismissed the thought to save his already
frayed nerves from further torment, but his heart was still pounding five
minutes later, as he stepped into the shower to wash away the fatigue he had
accumulated during the day.
As usual, Eleanor was ten minutes late, although Jeremy didn't find it in
him to scold her. Sometimes he told himself that he was too lenient with
her, but she was like his sister after all, despite all the gossip that went
around in college about them.
_______________
As mentioned previously, C&C welcome. If you have written a BGC fic and
would like me to read it to offer C&C, I would be very happy to do so.
Destral
"Endure. In enduring, grow strong" Dak'kon, Planescape: Torment
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