The Extinction Switch: Book three of the Kato's War series (30 page)

“No, you may not,” August said curtly.

The soldier’s eyes narrowed. “Hmm. Well, we are encouraging groups of all sizes to leave the city.”

“That’s what we’re trying to do,” August said, irritably.

“Okay. Well, take the ramp up. We have units stationed all the way to the end of the tunnel, to provide safe passage.”

“What should we expect outside?” JC said.

“Almost everybody was wiped out.”

“Yes, we know that. I mean, what are the main threats?”

The soldier sighed. “It’s safe within a few kilometers of the exit. Beyond that… the situation is developing.”

“In other words, you don’t know. Surely you could have drones up surveiling the area?” JC said.

The soldier shrugged. “Most of our intelligence officers are dead.”

“Oh…”

“Carry on,” the soldier said. “You may be able to get a small amount of food and water on the way out.”

“Thank you,” Lord August said. They began to ascend on ramp for the highway, with their units in tow.

Soon after they had climbed the twenty-meter slope to the wide highway, one of the Raiders nearest the leaders said: “The units behind are complaining of being tired. They want to stop and rest.”

“Negative,” JC said. “Not until we’re out of the city.”

“It’s a long march for the elderly and the children,” Lord August said.

“We can’t risk the military tide turning while we’re still in here,” JC said. Lord August frowned, looked ahead, and kept walking.

“Is this the way we came in?” David asked.

Vivianne looked up at the highway’s wide tunnel walls and the roof, twenty meters above. “Could be. They probably all look the same.”

“Can you carry Etienne for a bit? My shoulders are aching something fierce.”

“Okay.” He passed the little girl over to her mother.

“Hungry,” Etienne said. David passed her a cracker from a small supply he kept in his pocket.

“Are we going to be stopping any time soon?” David asked Kassandra.

“I’m afraid not. Been listening on the radio. Some of the others have been asking the same thing, but JC won’t let them.”

“Hmph. I bet the older people are having a hard time here.”

The rate of complaining from the tired, frightened, grieving former residents of Silo 7 increased as they trudged the seemingly endless kilometers of the D489 highway. Troops were stationed at regular intervals to keep the crowd moving. At last, they reached the exit, where tunnel gave way to open air. Two French Army vehicles and a dozen soldiers guarded it, waving the marchers on with their guns.

“Is there any food available?” JC asked one of them.

“We ran out.”

“Who’s out there? What bad guys?” JC asked gruffly.

“We are trying to restore control, but there are a lot of desperate people and few troops.”

“That’s enough,” the sergeant next to him admonished. “Keep your group moving.”

Fifteen minutes later, all of The Excluded had left the city. Some of them had to walk with their eyes almost closed, as they were not used to the glare of daylight nor the sting of ultraviolet rays on their retinas. Those who could see eyed the piles of bodies at the side of the roadway. Either side of the road were flat, open fields. The smell of decaying flesh permeated the air.

“We’re about to have a mutiny on our hands,” a Defender’s voice said from JC’s radio. “If they go any further, they’re just going to sit down on the spot.”

“All Defenders, take your units to the field on the left of the road. We’ll rest and regroup,” JC said.

Soon, the large group was sitting in a corn field 100 meters from the road. At the beginning of spring, it was mostly dirt covered with the dead, wizened stems of the previous year’s harvest.

Akio looked behind them at the towering, gently curved face of the city, 500 meters away. The glass was punctuated with Gothic arches every kilometer or so. “I guess it didn’t all collapse,” he said to Zara. “Maybe just the part where we were.”

“Yeah.” The exhausted mob laid down, on their belongings, on each other, or on the dirt. Some ate what little food they had managed to bring. Some of the travelers on the road looked over at the large group. Civilian passenger vee-tols flew overhead, both into and out of the city.

Lord August and JC sat near the center of the group. “Now what?” Lord August said.

JC held a display unit that projected a map of the local area in midair. “We need to get to a town,” he said. “The closest ones are Feurs, to the west, and Tarare to the northwest. The problem we’re going to have is that the thousands of people leaving the city are all going to be trying to do the same thing, to find food.”

“Yes.”

“This means we’re going to have to travel further.”

“And how do you propose to get our hungry, weakened flock dozens of kilometers from here?” Lord August said.

“I never said I had the answer yet, did I?”

Blake happened to be sitting nearby, listening to the conversation. “What if we could take buses or planes or vee-tols? Surely there have to be some of those sitting around, disused.”

JC shrugged. “Maybe if a bus comes along the road here we could hijack it. But, we’d need a few of them for nearly three hundred people. Vee-tols would be godsend, but they’ll be worth more than their weight in gold now. We’d likely get shot before we could even get close to one. If only we weren’t encumbered by the weak…”

Lord August looked stunned. “What? They’re all part of The Excluded, young or old, sick or well. How could you say such a thing?”

JC’s eyes narrowed as he looked at August. “It’s going to be survival of the fittest.”

Lord August stood up, as did JC. “I can’t believe you. One minute you’re looking out for everybody, and the next minute you’re wishing half of them away. You just want to run your own military-style community with an army at your command. If that’s what you want, go and do it.”

“Don’t tempt me. You won’t make it without me, though.”

“You’re just one man. We have plenty more men and women, very able fighters, who’ll fill your shoes.”

“Not if I take them with me.”

“Like hell you will!” Lord August shouted. The rest of The Excluded was now watching the fight. “This community is mine!”

“That’s what you’d like to think, old man,” JC said with a calm, measured coldness. “But given the choice, I think they’d rather survive than not.” Blake looked at Thaddeus and Aimee. They looked as nervous as he did.

JC addressed the crowd. “Look at your leader! This weak old man is supposedly going to deliver you all from evil. Do you really think he’s going to get you through the hardships ahead?” They looked at Lord August and then back at JC. “Come with me if you want to live. Whoever is with me, stand up.” JC scanned the crowd. “Even the impostors are welcome,” he said, looking straight at Akio and Zara. “Come on, stand up!” Thaddeus rose slowly to his feet. Blake remained seated, glaring up at him. Nobody else rose. “Who else?” JC said. A family of six stood up.

“You’ll split my community apart over my dead body!” Lord August said.

“Like I said before, that can be arranged,” JC said. The two men stared each other down.

Eventually, Blake stood up. “We’re not going to solve anything by fighting,” he said, looking at Lord August and then at JC. “It’s going to get dark soon. We have to stick together and defend each other.” The crowd murmured in agreement. JC’s brow furrowed as he fixed Blake with a hard stare. Blake didn’t flinch.

“Zara to
Revenant
. Come in,” she said into the small radio.

“How are you, honey?” Kato’s voice said after a few seconds of static.

“Not great. Listen Dad, we’re outside Lyon now. It’s completely lawless. It’s every man for himself. There’s no food.”

“Oh no…”

“Can you come and get us?”

“Yes, of course. Just you guys and Kassie?”

“Well, we have a few friends too.”

“How many?”

“Two hundred and ninety-five, I think.”

“
What?
”

“Yeah, Kassie was living in some sort of underground commune. They took us in, and now we’ve all left the city.”

“Oh…”

“Come on Dad, moving people and things is what you do for a living.”

“No, don’t hear me wrong, Zara. It’s no lack of desire to come and get you, it’s finding enough shuttles. Plus, are you near an air and space port?”

“Lyon’s one is probably still locked down by the rebel forces. That’s why we had to crash-land the ship on a road. That could have all changed now. The army might have all died when the…
thing
was used. Don’t know who’s in charge there now.”

Kato sighed. “Okay. Well, we do have some VTOL shuttles, which don’t need a runway of course.”

“I wish I’d have one of those on the way down here!”

“Yes. Well, anyway, we don’t have very many. Plus, I think they might be at the ETI, which means I’ll have to pry them loose from service in the Mars evacuation. But, I’ll come and get you, don’t worry.”

Zara was quiet for a second. “But…”

“Your friends?” Kato said in an inquiring tone.

“Yes.”

“There’ll be room for them too.”

“Yes! Thanks, Dad. Be as quick as you can. Things aren’t good here.”

“I will. And keep your radio on, so we can locate you.”

“The sky is just the same, Dad,” Kassandra said. The cloudy day had given way to a night of crystal clear stars. Kassandra lay on her left side, in the field where the travelers had stopped, looking up.

“What do you mean?” Akio said, as his eyes scanned the heavens. Zara was asleep behind him.

“It looks just the same as it did before all of this hateful stuff happened. All of us humans, with our ugly, awful ways. It’s like the stars just look down on us, never changing. There might have been times when they looked down proudly, but now they’re just mocking us.” Akio looked over. Kassandra’s pretty face was in profile from where he lay, illuminated by star and moon light. Her large eyes were like telescopes, scanning the heavens and taking in information.

“Were you always this deep?” Akio said.

“Yes. But, I never had anyone I could really talk to about anything that mattered. I was just seen as this rich party girl. So, I went along with it.” Kassandra shrugged. “Some people thought I was dumb and spoiled. So, I just let them keep on thinking it.” Little wisps of breath condensed near Kassandra’s mouth when she spoke.

All was silent for half a minute. Most of the others in their party were asleep. “Were you—are you—okay?” Akio asked. “You seemed happy growing up.”

“Well, I
was
okay. I observed and thought about things a lot. I just didn’t talk much. That’s how I dealt with all the fakers that just wanted to be around me because of my money. I let them
think
they mattered, and that this was the type of life I wanted to lead. But, I knew there was more to me.”

“You said you
were
okay. As in past tense.”

Kassandra sighed. She looked at Akio. “I hate the stars. I may have grown up among them, but that’s where
it
, that awful asshole, came from. The death and destruction and inhumanity I’ve seen in the last six weeks…”

“Seung Yi?”

“Yes. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to dissociate all of the suffering, the piles of bodies right around us for Christ’s sake, from the sky.”

“I can understand why you’d think that way. But, it’s still beautiful,” Akio said. “Don’t let him rob you of enjoying it. Choose to associate it with something else instead. Think about your grandpa heading out there hundreds of years ago, and your mom saving him.” Kassandra snorted. Akio continued, “If all that hadn’t happened, you wouldn’t be here. Fate, whatever you want to call it, used its mighty hand to move your mom from the 21st century to the 25th. That couldn’t have happened had she not been in space for most of that time, up there in the heavens.”

“Well, maybe…” Kassandra trailed off. She lifted her head up and scanned horizontally around them. The lights of the D489 highway marched off into the distance. They could make out pedestrians and vehicles heading out of Lyon. “You know something Dad?”

“What?”

“Part of me enjoyed killing those people.”

“
Really?
”

“Wait, that came out wrong. I didn’t mean for the sake of killing them. I haven’t turned into Seung Yi. I mean, fighting for The Excluded. Starting with Taygete. And then the battle. Fighting was an almighty rush, Dad. I think I was meant to be a warrior.” Kassandra looked up at the sky again.

“Hmm. From the sound of things, I’d probably have to agree with you,” Akio said. “You come from good stock. Your mom hijacked Seung Yi’s ship, of course. And way back in the mists of time, your great grandma on your dad’s side saved a Chinese guy near Mars. She traveled thousands of kilometers from the mother ship, alone, and very nearly died in the attempt.”