The Eternal War (32 page)

‘They here now,’ said the ape, looking up, his small eyes wide as pennies.

CHAPTER 58

2001, Dead City

Captain McManus nodded at the message coming in over his earpad. ‘Right you are, we’re on our way over.’

He turned to Liam. ‘Good news, Mr O’Connor. We’ve got a report of a handful of the runaways boxed up in a small alleyway … couple of
guests
along with them. One girl; one man, quite tall. Sound like your two?’

Liam exhaled a sigh of relief. ‘Are they all right?’

‘Apparently. They’ve both been seen on their feet. That’s obviously a good sign.’ McManus opened up a map of the city. ‘Just nearby the old university on North Charles Street.’ He looked up from his map to the streets around them, taking a moment to get his bearings.

‘Ah … yes, very close indeed.’ He pointed up at the carrier hovering over the city a block away. ‘Just over there, in fact. Right underneath her.’ He tapped a switch on his mouthpiece. ‘All units in the vicinity of the carrier … this is Captain McManus. We have a group of eugenics and their human prisoners bottled up in an alleyway. Nobody is to engage them. Repeat … no firing. Just hold your positions, chaps, until further orders.’

He tapped the switch on the mouthpiece to turn it off. ‘Well, now, gents … shall we?’

A wretched look of belated relief stretched across Liam’s face. ‘Aye.’

‘We go hide,’ said the ape anxiously, pointing up at the fire escapes and the dark open windows of the tenement blocks.

‘No!’ said Sal. ‘No … if you run from them, if you hide in those buildings, they’ll come after you! They’ll kill you all!’

A mewling whimper of fear rippled through the creatures huddled around Samuel.

‘What we do, Sam?’ asked one of them. ‘What we do?’

Sal craned her neck to look out of the alleyway into the wide avenue. She could see dozens of red tunics now hunkered down with guns trained on them. The soldiers had dragged several vehicles and carts aside to create a narrow access way up and down North Charles Street. She turned to look down the far end of their alley. The soldiers and their dogs were settled there, patiently waiting. Above, the sky was still blocked by the air vessel, a searchlight occasionally blinking on and combing up and down the alley.

‘I’ll go out there,’ she said, pointing to the soldiers. ‘Let me talk to them! Let me explain you’re not dangerous … that you’ve not hurt anyone. That you’ll come out peacefully.’

‘They kill us!’ one of them gasped.

‘You have to trust me!’ she said. ‘I think they must’ve come to rescue me and Abraham. If we go out and show them we’re not hurt, they’ll –’

‘
Sodjers
kill others. Me saw it!’ said a eugenic from another group. ‘Wuz all hands up … and they does the bangs bangs!’

‘If you try to run, I’m
sure
they’ll shoot you down!’ snapped Sal. She turned to Samuel. ‘Please, Sam … let me go out and talk to them!’

He scratched his chin, his fingers trembling. His eyes darted from one end of the alley to the other nervously. ‘You think sho? You can make it shafe?’

‘You’re not monsters … you’re not dangerous. I can tell them that.’

He pressed his ragged lips together. ‘You … tell ’em, then. Tell ’em we’re not bad. We didn’t hurt no one.’

She nodded. ‘I will.’

Samuel smiled. ‘I trust.’

‘OK,’ Sal smiled. She got to her feet.

‘A moment, young lady!’ said Lincoln. He tore the bottom half of the sleeve off his dirty shirt. ‘A white flag … well, truth be, it’s brown, but they shall understand it as a flag of truce,’ he said, tying it round a strip of wood. He got up and walked cautiously to the mouth of the avenue. ‘Allow me.’

‘COMING OUT!’ he bellowed loudly. ‘PLEASE DO NOT SHOOT YOUR GUNS!’ He waved his makeshift flag in the open … up and down several times to be sure it was seen.

‘I AM STEPPING OUT!’ Lincoln’s voice boomed again, and then slowly he emerged into the morning sunlight streaming down the broad avenue, both arms raised. ‘I am Abraham Lincoln! I bear no arms!’

‘Step out into the road, if you don’t mind, sir … so we can see you nice and clear!’

‘I have a girl with me! She wishes to
parley
!’

There was no response to that. Lincoln turned slowly and nodded at Sal to step out beside him. She emerged into the sun, shading her eyes with her raised hands. ‘Please! Don’t shoot!’ she called out.

‘Stand beside the gentleman,’ a voice replied. ‘There’s a good girl!’

She did as she was told. ‘There are some eugenic creatures with us … down the alley! They also want to come out and join us peacefully!’

There was no answer. The morning was still and silent save for the soft hum of idling motors up in the sky. From far away the stillness was broken by an echoing crack of gunfire.

‘Sal? … Is that you?’

CHAPTER 59

2001, Dead City

The voice came from further up the avenue. She couldn’t see anything with the glare of the sun in her eyes, but she recognized the voice. ‘Liam?’

‘Aye! Jay-zus!’ His voice echoed back down the avenue. She heard the slap of his feet on hard tarmac and finally he emerged in front of the soldiers and stood before her. ‘Well, look at you …’ He checked her over. ‘Look a state, so you do.’

She felt a rush of relief so intense her legs felt unsteady beneath her. She noted the bandage on his head. ‘You got hurt?’

‘Knocked out, Sal. Stupid, I should’ve ducked. That’s why I –’

‘So, this is your
sister
, is it?’ called out another voice, crisp and commanding.

Sister?
She glanced up at him. He nodded slightly. She realized Liam must have told them that for a reason. Out of the bloom of sunlight, she saw a tall wide shape emerging. Unmistakably Bob. Beside him another man, slim, wearing a white pith helmet.

‘This fella here,’ said Liam as they approached, ‘is Captain McManus. It’s really all thanks to him we found you, so.’

Beneath the helmet’s peak she saw the taut face of a young army officer. ‘Sister?’ He frowned. Confused. ‘But you’re white and she’s …’

‘My
step
sister, so she is,’ cut in Liam. ‘Closest family I got, so help me.’

McManus cocked his head and shrugged. ‘Well, then –’ he extended a white-gloved hand – ‘Really rather pleased we found you in one piece, young lady.’

She reached out and shook it lightly. ‘Thank you.’

‘And you, sir?’

Lincoln shook his hand. ‘Abraham Lincoln.’

‘Jolly good to have retrieved you unharmed, Mr Lincoln.’ McManus nodded politely. ‘Now … we’ve got a few of these runaways back in the alley, have we?’

Sal nodded. ‘Look … please don’t hurt them!’

He frowned at her. ‘Don’t hurt them?’

‘Please! They’re harmless!’

He tapped his finger pensively against his chin. ‘How many of them down in that side street there?’

She shrugged. ‘Couple of dozen, I think.’

‘These creatures, Captain … they did not kill any people. It was other creatures. Nor have they hurt us,’ said Lincoln.

‘They treated us really well,’ added Sal. ‘Gave us food and water. They didn’t hurt us.’

‘Really?’ McManus looked bemused. ‘That’s rather untypical behaviour of these things. They’re feral animals. You can’t predict how they’ll behave from one moment to the next.’

‘You sure they didn’t hurt you?’ said Liam. ‘I mean they were … well, they seemed pretty ferocious back in that farmhouse.’

‘They were scared, Liam! They’re like frightened children.’

‘Frightened, perhaps, but they are still exceedingly dangerous. They need to be apprehended. And then we can decide what’s to be done with them. I can’t promise clemency if we discover any of them were directly involved in the recent killings – you understand that?’

Sal nodded. ‘Honestly, it wasn’t any of them.’

He glanced over her shoulder at the deserted brick tenement building. ‘Do we need to flush them out of there as well?’

She shook her head. ‘No … I told them not to go inside and hide. That it would just make things worse.’

‘Very sensible advice.’

‘They’re all just waiting back in the alley. They just want to come out … like we did. Just come out with their hands up.’

He shrugged. ‘Good.’ He cupped his hands round his mouth. ‘YOU RUNAWAYS HIDING IN THE ALLEY … BEST YOU COME OUT NOW!’

Nothing emerged from the alleyway. For a moment Sal had a sinking feeling that fear had got the better of them and they had quietly slipped away into the tenement buildings on either side. But then they heard a soft frightened whimper emerge from the gloom.

Too frightened to budge.

‘Let me try,’ she said to McManus.

‘If you wish.’

‘SAMUEL!’ she called out. ‘It’s OK! They’re not going to hurt any of you! Do as he said … all of you! Just like I did … slowly, with your hands nice and high!’

Silence. Not a murmur. She was about to cup her mouth and try again, but then the first pale figure slowly emerged, blinking, into the sunlight.

Samuel. He was doing as she’d instructed: his thin, child’s arms raised above his oversized head. Twenty yards away, she could see he was trembling. The ape emerged behind, towering above him, huge muscular arms raised.

‘No shoot!’ it cried in a deep voice.

Sal nodded encouragement. ‘That’s right! No one’s going to shoot you. Come on!’

The others began to emerge one by one. ‘That’s it … come on. It’s OK!’

Captain McManus studied the creatures as they stepped into the daylight. ‘By the shape of the heads I’d say these are mostly Watson-Rutherford Class Eugenics. Manufactured fifteen … some of them
twenty
years ago,’ he mused. ‘Hmmm, all old stock, very poor condition looking at them, largely malnourished.’

He ordered some of his men over to herd the group together.

Liam stepped beside Sal. He put an arm round her shoulders and hugged her. ‘It’s a relief to see you again,’ he whispered, squeezing her tight. ‘I let you down, Sal. God, I’m so sorry! When I came round … I was … you were already gone –’

She put a hand to his mouth. ‘I’m OK. Honest.’

‘But if –’

‘We’re both fine, Liam,’ she smiled. ‘Hungry … 
very
hungry, but fine.’

‘Closer together, Corporal!’ barked McManus. ‘Don’t want any of these devils sneaking off!’

‘Mr Lincoln? You’re not hurt?’ asked Liam.

‘As this young lady said … we are both fine, Mr O’Connor. But I could eat a whole barn full of horses!’

‘Liam?’ She stepped back. ‘Heard anything yet from Maddy?’

He shook his head and lowered his voice. ‘Nothing.’

McManus was busy issuing orders and appraising the condition of the eugenics. ‘Not a thing,’ he replied. ‘She must have problems of her own to deal with.’

‘And those of you wearing clothes,’ called out McManus, ‘let’s have those removed, if you please … you’re
not
human!’

Sal turned to look up at Bob and smiled. ‘Good to see you too, coconut head.’

‘I am glad you are both unharmed,’ he replied.

She punched his flank gently. ‘You know, one or two of these genics have got even bigger muscles than you!’

He scowled. ‘Muscle-tissue
density
, not size, is the determining factor.’

She tipped her head back at the creatures. ‘Seen the big one back there? Hmm? Jealous?’

He looked puzzled. ‘That is not a human emotion I have managed to generate files on yet.’

‘Not jealous? Yeah right.’ She turned round to point out the ape and stopped dead. ‘Hold on! Hey! … What’s going on?’

The others turned to see Captain McManus unbuckling the flap of his gun holster. The creatures were huddled tightly together in the middle of the avenue, their items of clothing – hats, scarves, aprons – discarded on the ground. The soldiers had formed a loose circle round them, a cautious dozen yards between them and the eugenics, carbines raised to their shoulders and aimed.

‘Excuse me!’ called out Sal. ‘What’re you doing?’

McManus ignored her. ‘Mark your targets, men!’

‘Jay-zus!’ Liam jogged over towards him. Sal followed. ‘Captain McManus! What? Hoy! Stop! You’re not planning on
shooting
them, are you?’

He turned to Liam. ‘What? Yes, of course we are.’

Sal saw Samuel at the front of the huddle, his eyes picking her out. His ragged lips moved. A whispered unheard question.

Sal? You told us …?

‘Clearly they’re not a danger to anyone now!’ said Liam. ‘Can you not see? They have no weapons! Look at them … they’re –’

‘They are faulty, Mr O’Connor. Faulty eugenic units. Which makes them unreliable. As I said, unpredictable.’

Sal looked at him. ‘
Faulty?
’

‘Quite faulty, yes.’ He nodded casually. ‘They can’t be reconditioned. Quite honestly they’re in an appalling condition anyway. And we certainly can’t leave these things running around on the loose.’ He turned back to his men. ‘Make ready!’

‘Stop!’ she shrieked. ‘Please! Stop!’ She grasped his gun hand.

‘Excuse me! Would you mind letting go?’

‘Look! Captain,’ said Liam, ‘I don’t think this is right either! You can’t just shoot them like this!’

Lincoln had joined them now. ‘My friends are quite correct, sir! These poor wretches should not be treated in this way!’

McManus looked at them all. Bewildered by their concern. ‘You
do
understand these are not –’ he looked at the shivering huddle of ash-white eugenics – ‘that these are not … 
people
? Good grief, they’re not even animals. They’re eugenic products! Blood and bone factory machines … that really is all they are.’

‘No!’ cried Sal. ‘Jahulla! No! They’re more than that! They … they … they’re just like us! They’re intelligent! They can talk and –’

‘Of course they can talk. Some of them were designed that way. Good God, some of the smartest ones can almost be convincing. But listen, young lady,’ he said softly, almost sympathetically, ‘don’t ever make the mistake of thinking one of these things can be your
friend
.’