Reason For Vengeance (Dark Vengeance Book 1) (2 page)

His friend wasn’t stupid and quickly caught onto Williams concerns.

“But if they’ve done that, they don’t want us getting to Temple Square.”

“I don’t think they want us amongst their towers,” William said shaking his head.

The protest had arrived at the off ramp now and as they got closer, William could see those in front trying to slow down, but unable to from the press of people behind.  Then it came into sight, a police cordon, identical to the one on the Speedway, armoured officers and permacrete barriers.  There was no way through.

“We’ve got to stop!”  William shouted to those around him, who looked back in confusion.  “They’re not going to let us down the ramp!”  Even with Guido adding his voice, it did little good.  They were a small island of concern in a vast sea of exuberant people.  The crowd continued to move forward and carried the two boys with them, along with anyone trying to heed the warning.

A crack resounded over the crowd.  It echoed off the Speedway walls and was then drowned out by the whines of Pulse Cannons, followed by the screams of the dying.  William could see the blue Pulses from the arm mounted cannons.  Bolt after bolt was fired into the crowd.  Each shot’s energy was so powerful that bodies were being flung metres into the air.

A ripple passed back through the crowd.  The survivors at the front turning frantically to get away from the death they faced.  Those behind were continuing to push forward, either not realising the danger or pressed from further back.  Guido grabbed William’s arm as the pressure from both sides increased.  Flesh was pressed against them from all directions.  People shouted in fear and distress.

Breathing became harder and harder and William thought he would die at any moment.  The pressure eased as the flow of the crowd began to reverse.  Holding grimily onto his friend, William moved with the crowd back towards the Ghetto.  Gone was the relaxed and convivial atmosphere, now it was panic and terror. 

People pushed and shoved to get away from the continuing whine of the Pulse Cannons.  Over the noise of the crowd, William could clearly hear them firing in time with one another.  People fought and clawed to get away and only due to his youth, height and strength did William manage to keep his feet, dragging the much smaller Guido along with him.

Others around them fell and were swept under to be trampled.  William’s foot trod on something soft and he there was no time to react, the crowd forcing him past in moments.  A child of ten went down with a scream, only metres from William.  The boy’s father, who minutes before had been walking with the boys, plunged after his son and William never saw either of them emerge.  A woman clutched at William’s free hand frantically, he had no idea who she was but grasped for her all the same.  It didn’t help.  She too was pulled under and crushed.

Still the force of the crowd increased to what could only be described as a tsunami.  Desperation infused William’s entire being.  He believed this was to be his very last day in the universe.  William saw men, women, girls and boys all falling to the ground and trampled underfoot.

A sharp pain caused William to cry out as something hit his arm and Guido was torn from his grip.  Desperately, William turned to search for his friend.  He fought those who pushed against him.  “Guido.  Guido.”  He called, hoping to hear Guido call back with the familiar.  “Will.  Will.”  It didn’t happen and the crowd forced him further and further away.

***

The words Red Lion, flashed on a gaudy sign over a heavy metal door, set into an alcove of a grey permacrete building.  The long window next to it was dirty and dim, but you could still make out the dark shapes of people at the bar.  It was doing a fair trade and yet the sun was still high in the sky.

A broad shouldered, tall man in his sixties, wearing a dark brown overcoat so familiar here in the Ghetto of Zeus, walked out and the door swung shut behind him.  He placed a wide brimmed hat on his bald head and stepped into the street.  Wheelies passed him on the busy road, an odd aircar set in hover mode looking out of place among them.

Turning to the left, the man set off at a casual stroll.  His eyes scanned his surroundings constantly.  There were good people here, but many desperate ones as well.  It paid to stay alert.  From the dark alcove of an abandoned shop a woman and man sauntered out.  The woman was in her late forties and nodded to the man with the hat as she fell in beside him.  The man with her was much younger, in his late teens and almost bubbled with excitement.

“Mr Baccurin.”  He said.  “It’s an honour-“ he was stopped from saying anything more as the woman clipped him round the ear.  “Hey!” he complained.

“Shut up, Todd,” she told him as he rubbed his ear.  “You don’t say his name in the middle of the street.”

“It’s alright, Arlene.”  Billy Bac, the man in the hat, said.  “Have all the cameras been taken care of?”  One of her responsibilities, as Intelligence Officer within this Cell of the Rebellion, was to ensure the various security cameras set up by the Zeus police in the Ghetto were destroyed.  The local street kids did this for fun.  No one wanted to be spied on, but Arlene’s role was to make sure none were missed.

“We’re clear and we’ve made sure their two informants are busy elsewhere today.”

“Well then, there are many Baccurin’s.  It is a big galaxy after all, no harm done.  He’s still young.”  Billy turned his gaze to the young man and said in sterner tone.  “Just remember not to do it again.  Such carelessness can cost lives, including your mother’s.”

“Yes, sir,” Todd said.  “Sorry, Mum.  I’ll be more careful.”

Arlene nodded and smiled at her son.  “Isaac.”  She said using Billy’s pseudonym for this trip.  “We’re exposed here.  The cameras may be down, but the drones are up there.  All it takes is the right angle past that hat, for them to get a look at your face.  Can we please go to the flat?”

The tall man looked down at her for a moment and sighed.  “Very well.  I can hardly chastise your son and put us at risk myself, can I?”  He waved ahead of him.  “Please.  Show me the way.”

“Thank you.”  She acknowledged and picked up the pace.  Moving ahead of him, she led the three of them down the street.

Arlene took them to one of the many permacrete, forty storey buildings populating the Ghetto of Zeus.  There was little to differentiate them from all the other city Ghetto’s Billy had visited across the Pantheon.

Unusually, the lifts were working and the crowded car deposited them on the twenty-third floor.  The door Arlene headed to was identical to all the others, plain, drab and looking like it would fall over in a stiff breeze.

The woman tapped on the door lightly twice, paused then tapped three more times a bit harder.  The door swung open and she stepped inside, followed by Billy and Todd.  Billy found himself in an entrance way made of strong permacrete walls, with a much heavier metal door leading further in.  Obviously new, it had all been installed by the Cell.  A man armed with a Mag pistol held causally at his side, leaned against one of the walls and presumably it was him who let them in.

Behind Billy, Todd closed the door to the corridor and only then did the inner door open.  A camera overhead let those inside know if it was safe to do so.  A good security measure, it would save the Cell a few precious minutes in the event of a police raid, though it would do them little good unless they had a very well hidden back door.  Apathy for the threat they posed and staying hidden, was the best defence for the Rebellion.  Should the Pantheon forces actually move against the Cell, they would come with everything they had at their disposal.

“You’re a fool for coming, Billy, but it is good to see you.”  A large dark skinned man strode forward and clasped Billy’s hand in a forceful grip.

“Everyone seems to worry about me.”  Billy said as he returned the handshake with equal strength.  “I may be old but I’m not senile.  Last I heard, I’ve been doing this longer than any of you, Bastian.”

“True man, but here?  On Olympus?  The Legion’s biggest base is only a few dozen klicks away.  You know what they would do to you if they managed to get their hands on you.  Why are you here?  Checking up on us?”

“Not at all.”  Billy spied a chair next to a table and lowered himself into it.  “You don’t need me breathing down your necks to do a good job.  If you ignore the fact you have the biggest, most powerful and motivated police force in the Pantheon ranged against you, you have it pretty easy here.”

“That’s because you have us doing supply runs and intelligence gathering!”  Todd jumped in.  “Why can’t we take the fight to them?  Hit them where it hurts.”

Billy expected Todd’s mother to step in again but Arlene stayed silent.  He could see the same question in her eyes, in Bastian’s and the three other Cell members in the room.  Billy sighed and shook his head.

“No.  You all do good work here.  Important work.  What you learn and pass on to other worlds does make a difference.  We don’t have the strength to strike at them here, where they are at their strongest.  We must bide our time, be patient, wait until they are weak and then attack.  The Pantheon is too big and too powerful.  We must weaken them first.  Other Cells are doing that using the information you are providing.”  These people knew this, but sometimes they need to be reminded.

“They killed my father and my sister!”  Todd shouted.  “I can’t just sit here on my hands like the rest of you!”

Sitting back, Billy saw the hurt in Arlene’s eyes and cocked his head in a question.  Licking her lips the woman gazed back steadily and nodded once.  The pain and grief of her loss, mixed with the worry for her son, clear in her eyes.

“Very well,” Billy said to Todd.  “I can send you to one of the more active Cells, if that is what you want.  That cannot be here.”

Eyes widening in shock, Todd stared at the leader of the Rebellion before turning to his mother.  “Can I?”

She grabbed him into a ferocious hug.  “Yes.  I know you need to do this.”

As the mother and son moved off to a corner for some privacy, Bastian sat down opposite Billy.  He looked somewhat embarrassed at the emotions and cleared his throat.

“So why are you here then?  Obviously not to instruct us to switch to the offensive.”

“No.”  Billy said and turned to look out of the rooms single window.  Another identical building was the only thing visible.  In his mind he saw past that to the gleaming and shining towers of the Privileged, stretching up high into the clouds.

“It’s important for me to come here.  To see that nothing has changed in over forty years of struggle.  I’m old and I’m tired, but this is what keeps me going.”

Billy’s mind turned back to the protest.  He had never seen his best friend again.  Even Guido’s body wasn’t recovered.  The government decided, in the interests of efficiency to get the Speedway operational again, the thousands upon thousands of people who died that day would be interred in a mass grave in Sywell Park.  Within thirty hours, all of the bodies were collected, a hole was dug and all were buried.  The people of the Ghetto were still in shock.  It was completed well before any of them realised what was happening.  The only sign of the grave, a mound of freshly dug earth.  The government did not even raise a monument to those who died.

It was one of the many things making Billy believe it had all been orchestrated from the start.  He learned later, the sound he heard before the police opened fire, originated from a Heavy Mag rifle.  No one used Heavy Mag rifles in the Pantheon, not the Legion, the police, the gangs or later even the Rebellion.  A Mag rifle’s two main advantages were its rapid fire and low noise.  The Heavy Mag rifle cancelled both of these out.  Slower to fire and by accelerating the shot to twice the speed of sound, it created a sonic boom, that could be heard clearly anywhere along its flight path.  There were other weapons with a greater range and made a lot less noise.

Billy searched long and hard for that lone shooter, but never found them.  He believed the Privileged used that day as an opportunity to rid themselves of all those most likely to challenge their reign.  In one mass of humanity, they would have almost every worthwhile activist on the planet, along with others from across the Pantheon.  The official story the government released, said the police were only reacting in self-defence to being fired upon by the protesters.

That day caused the nineteen year old William Baccurin to write his manifesto, the Free People Society.  It was the start of the Rebellion and put him on the path to becoming Billy Bacc.

He turned back to Bastion.  “Don’t worry about me.  There are plans in place should anything happen.  Good men and women are ready to take over and continue the fight.  We face people who live for centuries and we must plan accordingly.  I knew early on I would not be here to see the end.”

“Is that the plan then?”  One of the Cell members who had stood quietly to one side stepped forward.  “We keep scratching at them.  Hoping to wear them out?”

Looking up at the young woman, Billy shrugged.  “What else can we do?  They have the technology and personnel to crush us the moment we stick our heads out of our holes.”

“What about the Legion?  Only the officers are Privileged.  All the rest are recruited from us.  They’re not traitors of their own people like the police.  They don’t beat and murder us!”

Pausing before speaking, Billy considered just how much he could say without damaging some of the Rebellion’s current operations.  It wouldn’t do any harm to let them know there was a plan.  Besides, the other side would know what the Rebellion were attempting, it was the obvious strategy.  More importantly, these people needed hope.