Urbis

Tana awoke as Elizabeth nudged her. She sat upright on the couch on which she had dozed off and looked around. Beyond the windows, dawn was painting the sky.

“They’re coming,” Elizabeth said softly. “Shah’s gone down to talk some sense into them. I don’t imagine he’ll have much luck.”

Tana roused herself and went to the window. Like soldier ants, an army was advancing slowly across the bridge, their chrometexed armour reflecting the orange of the rising sun. At their head they had a captured personnel carrier, an ugly, olive green box on tracks, which had about it something oddly primitive.

To the men walking steadfastly towards him, Shah appeared faintly ridiculous, not to say contemptible.

When the front of the column was twenty metres from the steel gate, he raised his arms as if seeking physically to push them back along the bridge. From the city, a Security helicopter approached, flying parallel to the bridge and almost level with it. It stopped a hundred metres from the wall and hovered, fanning the waves.

Shah surveyed the scene. “Citizens of Urbis,” he called, “this uprising is futile. To continue will only lead to a bloodbath. I do not want that, neither do you. Desist now. Go back to your homes...”

“We don’t have homes, Shah,” one man called out. “Except the streets.”

A sudden rapid movement and a glint of metal caught the eye of one of Shah’s aides, and he threw his chief to the ground as the bolt of white light from a blaster flew past. Shah crept away on his hands and knees as the fire was returned from both the perimeter wall and the helicopter, scything through the mob on the bridge until after what seemed an interminable delay weapons fired on the bridge and a blaster hit the helicopter. A burst of flame leapt from it as it pitched sideways into the water, showering those on the bridge with burning fuel and sending a score plunging over the side in flames.

As if from nowhere, a flotilla of black fins appeared in the sea, and the agony of those in the water was short lived.

Amid the furious crossfire, the captured personnel carrier lumbered forward until it clanged against the gate. It reversed, badly misshapen at the front, but having left a dent in the gate as well. It charged again.

Further along the bridge, the crowd parted to allow the passage of a second and a third captured machine, while more Security helicopters broke off from surveillance of the city to swoop over the bridge, beaten off again and again by withering fire.

Lyall’s instructions had been to send forward half his group for the first thrust by the Underground, and to keep the remainder in reserve for a second strike force. He had made the announcement to the assembled group, numbering sixty-five in total, as they sat in the conference chamber, looking extraordinary in their shining breastplates and helmets, taking a minute to familiarise themselves with the finer points of the long range laser weapons that they had been issued with.

Lyall stepped into his private office to write the names of his followers on scraps of paper to go into a hat. It came as no surprise when Josie entered.

“Josie,” he said angrily, “go and spend a few minutes with Crispin. They may be the last you’ll have.”

“Please, Lyall,” Josie begged. “If you want me to go down on bended knees I will, but spare him from the first wave. Please.”

“Josie,” Lyall snapped, “you’re wasting your time. We’ve been through this before, and I’m not going to go through it again.”

“Lyall, I implore you...”

Lyall was intransigent. “Josie, get out of here. You’re wasting time neither of us has to spare!”

As she was about to leave, she turned. “Lyall?”

“Yes?”

“Can you at least make sure we’re together, whichever group we’re in?”

Lyall smiled encouragingly. “Sure. Sure, I can do that.”

When Josie had gone, he marked crosses on the backs of two of the scraps of paper in front of him, then put them all into the hat.

Ten minutes later, he was mounting his bicycle to lead the first group through the tunnels to their destiny. Josie and Crispin were not among them.

Dr. Jim Coleman, managing director of Urbis Energy Corporation, had been summoned from his bed, and was still running a hand through his hair as he entered the control room of the city’s primary nuclear power plant. The plant had been starved of funds for essential replacement items, and had been surviving on a shoestring for the last couple of years. Despite his repeated vociferous warnings to the Energy Minister, the story was always the same: the Underground crisis and tightened belts for everyone except the Security Commission.

He looked at the panels for a moment in disbelief. What he read in the screens was impending catastrophe. Whether due to the effect of assault on the substations or purely by a freak of co-incidence, the number three reactor was showing a rapidly changing thermalhydraulic condition. A major accident sequence was well under way.

The turbine linked to the reactor had tripped, and pressure in the coolant surrounding the reactor had dropped to the point where bulk boiling could take place.

“You,” Coleman called, beckoning to the youth who had woken him. “What’s your name?”

“Graves, sir,” said the youth. “Phil Graves.”

“Okay, Graves,” said Coleman, “I’m going to need your help to co-ordinate this. We’ve lost all the pumps, so we’re going to see if we can instigate cooling by means of natural circulation. The rest of you, start the procedure for shutting down the other reactors. The basic procedure is on central memory, but call me if you have difficulty with anything. All right, Graves, we’ll see what we can do about single phase flow.”

“He wants to what?” Elizabeth screeched into her communicator in disbelief.

Dashwood, snatching the earpiece from his ear in pain, sat in his office and repeated Shah’s formal request to blow up a section of the bridge in order to stem the human tide sweeping across it.

“I can only put this down to his youth and lack of experience in this post,” Elizabeth concluded, seeking to regain mastery of her temper. “The man is panicking needlessly. I need hardly tell you, Dashwood, that the answer is no.”

She turned to Tana. “This business requires my more direct supervision, my dear,” she announced, and hurried from the room.

When Elizabeth had departed to oversee the counter-insurgency measures, confident in her anonymity, Tana hastily took in the state of the battle raging far below. She shuddered when she saw men fall dead on the perimeter wall. There would be much more killing before the day was done, and she felt she was at least partly the instigator. The courage of those men and women storming the walls stirred her to the core. Wondering how it would be when her own time came, she brushed hot tears from her face.

She hastily changed out of her business suit and into a set of Security fatigues and boots she had had smuggled to her, and then called her own leaders. Four men stood before her in Elizabeth’s study. Three were disaffected Security officers, each with a troop of men whose loyalty to him far outweighed loyalty to the Presidium. The fourth was a kitchen hand who acted as central co-ordinator for covert operations within sector one. Tana addressed each in turn.

“Tarrant, how many men do you have at your disposal?”

“Forty, all totally dependable,” Tarrant replied proudly.

“Only forty?” said Tana. “That doesn’t seem like a lot.”

“More would be pointless in an enclosed space,” said Tarrant.

Tana frowned. “I hope you’re right. For all our sakes. Their role in this will be crucial. Are they deployed?”

“Not yet, Tana,” said Tarrant. “They would draw attention to themselves. They are on standby in a convenient location, and can be on station in a matter of seconds.”

“Excellent,” said Tana. “They know what to do? No prisoners.”

Tarrant smiled. “They know what to do.”

“Good,” said Tana. “Keep your channel open at all times. Good luck. Dismissed.”

Tarrant left the room at the double.

“Meecham, you’re on left flank, aren’t you?”

“That’s correct, Tana.”

“You have your orders. The same applies as with Tarrant. I would like, however, to borrow some half a dozen of your men for a personal errand.”

“They are yours, Tana. Shall I bring them to you?”

“Not just yet. Are you acquainted with an officer named Brandt?”

Meecham laughed. “Former Divisional Lieutenant Brandt? Every Security man in the sector knows him. Most hate his guts. He acts like he’s still a lieutenant...”

“Just have your men keep tabs on him. I don’t want to lose track of him in the melee. Tell them also to keep their channel open at all times. Tell them to keep him out of the line of fire, and to bring him to me when I call for him. Dismissed.”

Meecham marched out smartly.

Tana turned to the remaining Security man. “Davis? Right flank? All the same applies. I also have a little chore for some of your men. I will shortly call for Shah. Bring him. Alive.”

“He will be guarded,” said Davis.

“Of course he will,” said Tana. “Get rid of the guards. That’s all. Dismissed.”

As Davis departed, Tana turned to the kitchen hand, still wearing his flour-smeared apron. She sighed heavily. “Larry. Thanks for coming.”

“I wouldn’t have missed it,” Larry beamed. “You’ve got no idea how long we’ve been waiting for this.”

Tana smiled, but her face betrayed tiredness and anxiety.

“You got something you want me to do, Tana? Anything special?”

“Two things, Larry. First of all, and most important, I suspect that when things get hot Elizabeth and Dashwood will try to make a break for it. Keep some of your people close to the helipad, and do what you can to stop them.”

“Gotcha,” Larry beamed knowingly. “And the other thing?”

“A personal favour. There’s a nurse called Cath Vernon and her little baby, they’ll be heading down to the bunkers. Can you see she gets a couple of guns to take care of herself and the kid?” There was a lump in her throat, and she struggled with the words. “It looks like it could turn nasty.”

Larry’s eyebrow twitched. “Friends?” Tana nodded. “Consider it done,” Larry smiled.

He was about to leave.

“Thanks, Larry,” she smiled.