[This is a work in progress and, yes, there are typos and such. Copyright Ion Fyr 2022]
Two hours later, after laying low, ditching Jaysson’s pistol, and her own raincoat, Nila was back in her flat.
It wasn’t hers. Just to be clear.
It has been over five years, at the time of this writing, since Nila Rabindranath “owned” anything. Maybe a gun or two. But NOTHING.
***
Space smells like Luc. Literally a hole in the wall. She was under ground. Not a pleasant place like Tesifon, but really, like, the Londbridge fucking Underground.
Still, it was shielded and powered. And outfitted with reserve ammo and a few backup guns.
The Kopf-Heckler stood up and did some cheerleader dance when Nila woke up. Not really. It was only an inanimate bullpup rifle, the kind with the action behind the grip. What the fuck do you think this is, a fucking magic flying castle?
Don’t get me wrong. There are such things, “magic” flying castles and “animate” weapons. The WCC rules from literal flying castles, with all of the advanced surveillance and weaponry, with “animated” somewhat anthropomorphic robots (generally referred to as anthromorphs).
From these platforms they send out forces to maintain their version of order and public obedience.
Most of the population of the cities falls in line, living their dull commercially driven lives without a second thought. Others, like Nila, move in the shadows, eeking out a more free existence, which was for some a fairly short span.
The news feed said little of the massacre, reporting only that “terrorists” attacked a MetSec station and that there were fatalities. No surprise there.
Sticking with the laying low idea, Nila decided to not go out for the remainder of her time in Londbridge. Instead she scanned several maps, both on the Net and in her own internal, for obscure location, apparently lying in the middle of the North Atlantic.
As far as she could tell there was nothing there beyond a speck of an island, home to sea birds and seals. It was off the trans-Atlantic shipping lanes, which tended to run directly from Londbridge to ports in northern Nuland, so it would be hundreds of kilometers north of the furthest north of those.
Even this time of year I should bring a hat and gloves, she thought.
Luc had several vehicles of several styles and functions, deposited nearby, stashed in rooftop sheds, mostly, though the one she wanted was inside the bricked-up chimney of an old dilapidated factory. It was a little farther than the rest, but would be the most comfortable for the long flight. It was, of course, a pale imitation of Luc’s own favorite sedan–the one that looked like a glistening green-black scarab beetle.
Nila spent the rest of the day gathering up supplies, cramming her rucksack with the Kopf-Heckler, plenty of magazines, food and a couple changes of underwear. She found a small water purifier-desalinization tube and crammed that in there as well.
Then, shoulder holster under her jacket, goggles and breather-mask on under the brim of a narrow black hat with a draping cloth around the back covering her ears and the back of her neck, she was off. Just for good measure, she brought along a ten-pack of cold lager.
Forty minutes or so later she was through the rusting fence surrounding Luc’s abandoned factory. Nila wasn’t sure if he actually owned it or not–it may have been on loan from one of his nefarious acquaintances, but in the end it didn’t matter, just so long as the car was in the chimney where it was supposed to be.
The grounds were filled with an assortment of junk and trash, the metal bits crumbling from the corrosive smog. From the ground she couldn’t see the top of the chimney–an ancient smoke-stack 6 meters wide at the base–only that it was made of brick. The brown circle of the morning sun was a disk against the smog, barely revealing the tower’s shadow against the shifting eddies.
The side entrance nearest the chimney, a pair of wide doors meant to disgorge workers at the end of their shift, was locked with a heavy chain and a surprisingly not corroded lock.
Nila wiped away the film covering the print-scanner and took off her glove, wincing at the slight burn of the air, the way one would chopping fresh chilis with raw fingers.
The lock chirped at her and clicked, releasing the chain. She briefly wondered how she was going to reset the lock once inside, but then gave up the thought when she considered that the entire reason for the lock was the car she was here to borrow. At worst, upon her return, she might discover a bunch of squatters holed up inside.
Squatters were pretty likely, looking at the interior. People had clearly camped out here in the past. Long cold campfire remnants littered the floor, along with tattered stinking blankets and a couple dingy mattresses. There was even the wheel-less carcass of a ground car–apparently someone’s home in the past–the back seats had been removed and replaced with a mattress on a pair of forklift pallets.
Stepping over the debris she moved toward the base of the chimney.
She dialed up the lowlight sensitivity of her goggles against the gloom. There were windows high up along the ceiling, but the power had ceased flowing decades ago.
A massive cupola hung from an equally massive triad of chains. A slab of steel, many thousands of kilos, lay on rollers frozen in the process of becoming a sheet, the giant hammer hanging over it waiting forever to pound it thinner again.
Nila squeezed through a narrow opening, having had to remove the rucksack to get through, and wormed her way around the back of the dead furnace. There she climbed a steel-rung ladder embedded in the back wall, up four meters to a narrow rail-less balcony of sorts.
This led to a sort of access hatch for the chimney proper, above the furnace. The hatch itself had been welded shut, then pried open, then hastily bricked over (with a questionable level of workmanship).
Without concern for noise she pulled at the brick wall with her fingertips, bring the whole shoddy thing down onto the balcony and then the floor below with a crashing cacophony that echoed around the entire factory, probably drawing attention to vagrant streetfolk half a kilometer away.
Inside the chimney, the tapering cylinder was coated with a thick layer of black soot. The balcony’s interior counterpart, encircling it a half a meter wide was equally covered in soot, but foot prints had left their marks between the hatch and the car.
It hung vertically on the wall, it’s landing legs bearing it’s weight in a way that she wasn’t sure they were designed to do. The nose was pointed up and the tail end blocked the rest of the balcony, practically resting on it.
It was a sleek craft, designed for no more than two or three occupants a mottled grey color, that, at a distance might cause it to be mistaken for a derelict left to crumble in the weather. The shape was rather simple: low nose, horizontally a meter wide, which rose to the cabin, not quite a meter top to bottom, and then lowered to a tail end which mirrored the front. It was overall around five meters long and a little over two wide. The four nacelles were more bumps protruding, two on each side, than pods like most vehicles bore.
There were no windows or windscreen. All outside images were sent to internal screens.
access-device -device371key: v$99876a89bb | unlock-door |open-door
It was not easy getting in. The butterfly doors opened as expected, above the car, revealing the interior, but it was still vertical. The otherwise plush and comfortable seats were completely impractical oriented the way they were.
device-start | disengage | orient -level -maintain-position
With a slight grinding sound as the landing legs pulled free from the brackets they had been hanging from for who-knows-how-long. Then, in a fluid 90 degree tumble, the car settled into a normal, helpful position. Nila tossed her rucksack into the car, behind the passenger seats. It was a squat vehicle; floor to ceiling inside was barely 70 centimeters. So no standing up to stretch. There was, fortunately, a hand hold on the inside, below the hinge of the left door–the one she faced.
Awkwardly, she reached out, over the meter distance and was able to grasp the hand hold, and swung herself in. The ten pack of lager was swung in and placed flawlessly on the seat.
close-doors
Obeying the commands of her internal the doors shut.
A dim illumination came up. Light nodes like stars shed an almost purple light around the interior, making the soft red fabric which covered the wide seats, floor and ceiling, take on a pink-light blue hue.
The screens had come to life when she activated the vehicle. With the doors closed they provided a wrap-around 200 degree view of the front and sides outside.
In the center, in front of the status screens below the front viewscreen was a two handed joystick style steering column, with throttle built in.
Batteries were fully charged and the ID beacon was now pinging some fake information to whomever might be listening. Luc had also had the foresight to stock the underseat compartments with additional food and water.
Exiting the chimney required going vertical again. Nila being too lazy to strap in, just hung by her bent knees nearly upside down for the few seconds until the car leveled out again. Bad news was that the beer slid off the seat and landed next to the rucksack in the back. I’ll just wait awhile to open those.
She dropped in the coordinates and kicked back for the ride, enjoying the smog falling away to open ocean west of Londbridge.
#sci-fi #scifi #science fiction #fantasy #writing #fiction
ionfyr.net
Ion Fyr 