The Extinction Switch: Book three of the Kato's War series (23 page)

Two cars and a small group of people were in the road, a hundred meters ahead. They were clad in Raider apparel, already in ghost mode. Thaddeus waved to them as though he were one of their pack. They cheerily waved back. As soon as he had passed them, Thaddeus gunned the throttle again. The armored personnel carrier rounded the corner and opened fire on the group in the road. They had no chance to react. At once, Thaddeus, Kassandra, Taygete and Asterope crossed another road. The blank wall on their right gave way to empty, dark shops. A few people wandered around, looking dazed and forlorn. Thaddeus then slowed right down, scanning the storefronts until he saw one whose door stood open. He maneuvered his bike inside. The girls followed suit.

Kassandra removed her ski mask. She wore an expression of utter disbelief. “What… the… hell… just… happened?”

“We just passed Silo 6,” Thaddeus said. “We led the NPRF onto them, just like we planned.”

“Holy crap!” Taygete said, removing her own mask. She was shaking. “I… I…”

“There’ll be time for reflecting later,” Thaddeus said. “Right now, we need to get out of this area, and hope to God we don’t encounter the NPRF reinforcements. They’ll wipe out anyone they even suspect is a silo dweller.”

“Oh God…” Kassandra said.

“We’ve got to go. Next major left is Circular Route 19. That’ll take us straight home. But first, I have to do this.” He took out his radio and called JC. The stunned leader, on learning of the turn of events, ended the call within seconds so he could issue the order for all their Defenders to fall back. Thaddeus then pulled his ski mask back on. They turned their bikes around, with some difficulty in the confined space of the shop, made a right, and sped off. Once they reached Circular Route 19, they made a left, and headed north as fast as their machines would go. At one major intersection they saw the tail lights of a long column of black armor. The convoy was making a left turn. They were heading towards Silo 6.

----

Kassandra sat cross-legged, with her back against the railings at the edge of platform 24C. Sitting with her, in a circle, were: Annabelle, Antonio, Vivianne, David, Magana, Blake, and Taygete. It was one o’clock in the afternoon. Kassandra and Taygete had just finished relating the events of the night and morning. The others wore rapt, open-mouthed expressions. There was silence in the circle.

“Bloody hell,” David said at last. “It really is World War III out there, then.”

“Yeah,” Taygete said.

“I don’t know how long The Excluded will be able to survive here,” David said.

“Fine by me,” Antonio muttered. Annabelle shot him an angry look.

“The NPRF are probably going to start searching all the underground utility spaces like this one now,” David continued. “Rooting out any more hidden communities they didn’t know about.”

“Yeah,” Vivianne said.

“So it really was your idea to make the NPRF attack our enemies?” David said to Kassandra.

“Yes,” Taygete interjected. “I was there.” She shook her head. “I never in all my days as a Raider expected to see anything like last night. I probably won’t sleep for days, I’m so pumped.”

“I’ll probably never sleep again,” Kassandra said, sadly. The others looked at her with concern. “I’m a rich party girl, not a killer,” she continued. “But the things I did and saw…”

Taygete turned to her left and took Kassandra’s hand. “You were
amazing
out there. You were brave. You rode a bike and used weapons like you’d been doing it all your life.” She took a deep breath. “And you saved my sister.”

“Anybody would have done it.”

“No they wouldn’t. Don’t you see? You’ve got something. Something inside you that you didn’t know you had.”

Kassandra bit her bottom lip and looked down at the grate that was the floor of the platform they were sitting on.

“I have a heck of a crick in my neck, thanks to you!” Blake said. He smiled at Kassandra. She looked up, and managed a small smile in return. “As far as I know, I’m the only human to have survived a trip through the goods distribution network,” he continued. “Wasn’t that your idea as well?”

“No,” Kassandra said.

“Yes it was, don’t lie,” Tayete said. She looked at the others. “I’m not sure what we’d have done if not for that, since there was no other way to get him home.”

“Anyone know what the geopolitical situation is?” Annabelle said. “Like, whether the French Army might retake the city?”

“No idea,” David said.

“Me neither,” Blake said. “I haven’t seen any evidence that says the NPRF isn’t firmly in control.”

“How’s the other girl… your sister?” Annabelle asked Taygete.

“She’s doing well. Thanks for asking.”

There was silence for a while, and then Vivianne spoke up. “How do you think they would manage to evacuate this place? And where would we go?”

David shook his head slowly. “It would be a logistical nightmare. Three hundred and fifty-something people, of all ages, with everything they need. And where would we settle?” He sighed. “I think we’re going to need to answer these questions sooner rather than later.”

“Yeah,” Annabelle said. “I couldn’t have predicted in a million years the stuff that’s happened so far. Who knows what the future holds? And that’s even if the Extinction Switch isn’t used.”

A brown-haired man in black headed along the catwalk, towards the group. “Oh, hey!” Taygete called out. “Everyone, this is Thaddeus, our partner in crime.”

“Hi,” he half-raised a hand when he reached them. He looked at Kassandra. “JC wants to see you, up on thirty.”

Kassandra looked like she was about to be sick. “Oh, God.”

“Everything okay?” David said.

“No it’s not,” she snapped, as she got up to leave.

Thaddeus and Taygete climbed the last of the stairs to level thirty, and went up through the hatch. “I’ll stay with you,” Thaddeus whispered. “It’ll be okay.” There were few people around, besides JC. He stood, tall and menacing, ten meters away.

“You are dismissed,” he said to Thaddeus.

“I’d like to stay, Sir…”

“I said, you’re dismissed.”

“Yes sir.” Thaddeus lowered his head, and walked slowly back to the stairs. Kassandra walked over to JC, and stood facing him, hands at her sides. She looked up at him, showing no emotion.

“So, the famous Nishumura graces us with her presence. The only person to have started a war and ended it in one day.”

“But, Sir…”

“Silence! Fifty-nine are dead on our side, and uncountable numbers on theirs. You directly disobeyed me by going out to fight.” He paused.

“I can’t argue with that, Sir.” Kassandra still looked him in the eye, unflinching.

“Damn right.
However
, our enemy has been routed, in a war that would probably have happened anyway sooner or later. You showed strategy, leadership, and courage under fire. Not to mention a level of fighting skill beyond your training. I am therefore going to keep you as a Raider.”

Kassandra broke into a wide grin, and teared up. “I thought…”

“That I’d punish you?”

“Yes.”

“Believe me, I had to go against every instinct in my body not to.” His steely expression softened almost imperceptibly. “You are dismissed.” Kassandra turned on the spot, and headed directly back to the hatch. She looked up through the grate as she descended the stairs, watching JC. As soon as he turned to walk the other way, she punched the air.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

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“Babe, I’m starting to think we’ll never find Kassie,” Zara said. Her face was grubby, her long dark hair was getting knotted, and her clothes were wrinkled. “We’ve been here three days now. I’m running low on flyers, my voice is getting hoarse, and I’m starving. She might not even be here. I’m not sure how much more of this I can take.”

“I know, love,” Akio said. “I think I’m holding up better physically than you are, but sleeping rough and begging for food are getting really old.” He sported three days’ stubble. They stood facing the city center. They could see the the steep Fourviere hill, roughly six kilometers away. Rows of thick glass columns, supporting the jade-green cathedral roof, marched away in all directions. They were halfway between two of the giant structures, which were 400 meters apart. Akio looked at Zara. “Do you sense a change in the atmosphere in the city?”

“Umm… not really. Why?”

“There are less people around. It’s getting quieter. There are more of those black drones flying. The NPRF have stepped up the number of guards and weapons around the columns to stop people getting down. It feels like the calm before the storm, somehow.”

Zara shrugged. “This whole place, the whole world, is a storm. There’s never been anything like this in history.”

“I guess. I’m just uneasy. The most since we’ve been here.”

“If you’re trying to say we should leave, I’m not ready to yet.” Zara accosted a shambling man wearing a flat tweed cap, as he made his way out from the city center, and handed him a flyer.

Akio sighed and looked up at the splendid Gothic arches. His eyes narrowed. He scanned the roof intently, listening hard. The few hairs on his arms stood up. “Can you hear that?”

“What?”

“That low, throbbing hum. And look, up there.” He pointed at the roof some distance towards the city center. “Can you see where the roof’s distorted, like someone’s holding a giant magnifying glass in front of it?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a stealth vee-tol gunship. Most likely the French Air Force. I think they’re going to try and take the city back.”

At once, a fusillade of rockets from a battery they couldn’t see streaked towards the roof. Within a second, white laser beams blazed from points all over the roof at the armor around the bases of the columns. Men and machines turned into whooshing columns of flame, and disappeared. The gunship, which was emitting the most powerful beams, turned its weapons on the incoming rockets, and vaporized them mid-flight. Screams erupted all around. Terrified refugees fled in all directions. Anti-aircraft artillery fire and lasers swept the sky indiscriminately. Most of them hit the roof, scorching it and blasting off chunks of glass which rained down on the city.

“Jesus Christ!” Zara yelled. “Run!”

Akio stood transfixed, watching the battle erupting around them. Occasionally, ground-to-air fire found its target. A bus-sized, bean-shaped vee-tol would burst into flames. Its smart skin, which was almost an invisibility cloak, would deactivate, revealing the vehicle to be black. Some exploded, and others just dropped like stones from the sky. Zara tugged hard at his arm, almost knocking him over. “Holy mother of God,” was all Akio could say, as he looked up. The gunship’s blinding beams scorched the ground around the pillars, vaporizing anything they touched. Fires broke out near its targets. Akio turned and ran with Zara, heading blindly away from the city center. This took them towards the base of a column. The air was rent as a fusillade of rockets roared above them, aimed at the gunship. Akio turned and looked back over his right shoulder as he ran. More rockets converged from all directions on the gunship. Pulses of white light burst from it, vaporizing the incoming weapons. However, some rockets made it to their target. The craft was engulfed in sheets of flame. Its smart skin flashed and flickered for a second, and then deactivated. The gunship’s shape was now apparent. It looked like a flying saucer. It began to tile slowly as it burned. Akio and Zara were now around 100 meters from the nearest column. He stopped again, gaping open-mouthed at the incredible sight of the crippled ship’s slow demise half a kilometer away.

“Holy crap, man! Run!” Zara shouted. As the black craft tilted more, it began to slide to the right, losing altitude as it did so. It picked up speed, like a frisbee after reaching the peak of its flight. A terrible fact soon became apparent: it would hit one of the columns. It was the second nearest structure to where they stood, some 300 meters away. The craft’s slide continued picking up speed. Everybody shielded their eyes as a blinding flash ensued. A visible shockwave blew outwards, shearing the column in two and smashing into the roof. The deafening blast reached Zara and Akio a second later, knocking them over. The huge glass tower also broke near the bottom. A large section of it, taking up most of its height, began to topple like an enormous tree being felled. It seemed to happen in slow motion.

Akio turned back around to face his wife. The light from the burning, falling pieces of the gunship played on her face. The column was not falling towards them, but panic took over anyway as the hysterical mob around them fled in all directions, some knocking each other over. Akio and Zara got back up and ran as fast as they could, away from the scene. Twenty seconds later, they reached the base of the closest column (not the one hit by the gunship.) The earth heaved. Akio and Zara were knocked to the ground once again. Turning around, they watched as clouds of dust and debris exploded into the air a few hundred meters away. Bus-sized shards of two meter-thick glass sprayed out in all directions, cutting through buildings as though they were made of paper. The deafening roar reached them. They covered their ears. Akio stared as the smoke and dust obscured the view into the city center. Zara, however, was looking at the roof above the hanging stub where the collapsed structure used to be. Large cracks began to spread, radiating out in all directions. She was transfixed, but then she let out a loud scream. The cracks reached the top of the column by which they were now sitting. Hundreds of panicked shrieks filled the air. Ever so slowly, the roof began to collapse. “WE’RE DEAD!” Zara yelled.