Nuclear Midnight (33 page)
Authors: Robert Cole
With slowing of the tanks, the arrowhead surged toward the city with renewed vigour. A gaping hole left behind by the destruction of section seventeen had partly destroyed several closely linked sections of the city and exposed these sections to the surface. As the first survivors reached the city they poured into these sections meeting little or no resistance from the terrified remnants of the military.
Alex’s company was advancing quickly now. The ambush at the riverbed had drained all of the military’s taste for battle; they were fleeing recklessly ahead discarding their weapons in their haste to escape back into the city. Alex and Cliff were leading the company at a jog collecting the best weapons as they advanced. Behind, hundreds of spirals of black smoke greeted the rising sun as most of the tanks, both military and survivors, burned. The remaining wall of tanks was still lobbing shells into the survivors’ ranks, but this quickly slowed as they were close enough now to see the survivors gleefully leaping down into the open wound that was once section seventeen.
When they reached the blast hole Alex and Cliff found they were amongst several hundred survivors who were pouring into the exposed tunnel system. Dead army-uniformed soldiers lay in several clusters near some of the entrances. There was no sign of any further resistance, although muffled sporadic gunfire could still be heard in some of the tunnels. Alex took one last look behind. There was no more tank fire. He seriously doubted all the military’s tanks had been destroyed. More than likely they had realized that, with the survivors pouring into the city, they had all but been defeated. He figured the military, in their arrogance, had committed nearly all their forces to the battle, assuming they would wipe the survivors out completely. There would be few soldiers left to defend the city. At close quarters the survivors would be more than a match for any remaining pockets of resistance.
Cliff and Alex followed the stream of survivors down through the blast hole toward a large concrete tunnel. Alex recognised it immediately as the underground train tunnel that linked all the sections of the complex. There would be no stopping the survivors now. They had won an unlikely victory. At least, he thought, the rightful owners of this miserable world would inherit it.
First Annual Progress Report of the
Science and Development Committee
Alex and Elaine Carhill
Since the defeat of the military at the town of Box there has been enormous progress in a number of areas. The repair and re activation of the industrial complex in Southampton is now almost complete. Steel, glass, plastics and the production of building materials are already in excess of demand. Three technically advanced cities are currently under construction on the surface. When they are finished, each will have the capacity to house fifty thousand people. The city rising from the ruins of Southampton, a geographically favourable site, will be the major industrial port of England. A second city has been established in Wiltshire and will be devoted to the production of primary produce. The third city, however, which has been built directly above the old underground complex, will remain the hub. This city will provide accommodation for the scientific community. In its research laboratories and underground data banks there already exists the technology to completely remodel society, as we knew it before the war.
For the moment however, there are far more pressing problems to overcome, both in the laboratory and on the surface. Of major concern is the elimination of long life isotopes from the water cycle and food chain. Fish have already proved too contaminated for general consumption, as have free ranging sheep and cattle. Only by the building of huge irrigation systems and water filtration plants have we been able to produce radiation free crops and meat fit for human consumption. For many months now, we have also been engaged in a huge extermination campaign to try to break the cycle of pestilence that has been established on the surface. Enormous areas of land have been sprayed with insecticides and many of the wild dogs that roamed the country have been shot. Once this cycle has been broken, re planting of forests can begin with special species of trees, which have already been genetically modified to stand high levels of UV radiation. Later, animal life is to be re-introduced. We have huge banks of animal sperm and ova stored in liquid nitrogen for this purpose. If everything goes according to plan, within a century, Britain will again resemble something of its former beauty.
In the immediate future, however, a major problem will be the availability of rare minerals to feed our advancing technology. Most of these minerals are found on the continent or further afield in the Middle East and Africa. Long range monitoring of radio frequencies and aerial surveillance have suggested that a number of primitive societies exist in these countries, not unlike the communities that once existed in Wales and Scotland. We are now engaged in fitting out a fleet of ships, which will travel to these countries to negotiate for the minerals we require. We stand at the threshold of change and development. The future of the planet is in our hands. In place of ugliness, we shall put beauty; in place of contamination, purity; in place of hostility, concord.
Alex Carhill: Personal diary entry
Much has changed in the past year since the successful invasion of the underground complex at Box. But I sometimes wonder whether my vision of a new, peaceful world will ever eventuate. Will mankind ever learn from his mistakes? Will the horror of the holocaust serve as a lasting lesson, or will it in time be forgotten.
Through all this I have learnt one lesson above all. Vigilance. For without it, greed, bigotry, the lust for power and dominance, will always re-emerge. History will repeat itself. Only time will tell…
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Thank you for reading my book. If you liked it, please take a moment leave a review at your favourite retailer.
Thanks.
Rob Cole
Robert Cole was born and grew up in Sydney, Australia. After achieving a Bachelor of Science (Honours) at the Australian National University he travelled extensively and returned to Sydney to complete a Doctor of Philosophy in molecular biology. Following a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Sydney University and he worked in a number of biotech companies and has numerous scientific publications.
Robert has always had an interest in writing speculative fiction, particularly with themes related to social and political issues. His other areas of interest lie in children and teenage fiction, generated while raising three children.
The Last Portal (for older children and young teenagers)
Severe weather patterns - storms, floods and strong winds - are sweeping across planet Earth. Against this backdrop, three high school students, known and tormented for their strange abilities, fight their own battles against school bullies. The discovery of a strange key by their leader Chris Reynolds plunges all three through a portal into a sister world, Cathora, in another dimension. In this world their behaviours, that labelled them as misfits on Earth, turn out to be the seeds of extraordinary powers.
They soon meet Batarr, the Guardian of the portal; he tells them they are not normal children, but are part of a group of six entities called Mytar who are periodically seeded throughout the dimensions to fight planetary invasions across these portals. Cathora has been invaded by an alien army, led by a creature known only as Zelnoff. Zelnoff’s next target is Earth. The Mytar alone have the power to stop him if the other Mytar on Earth can be found. There ensues many struggles and battles as Chris, Susie and Joe seek to evade Zelnoff’s forces long enough for their powers to develop so they can detect the remaining Mytar back on Earth.