Simon Morden - Theories of Flight

Below him, the first phalanx of cars leaped forward, carrying all before them. Glass shattered and metal bent. Bodies crumpled and bones snapped. The crane arm started to swing him around, and as the movement transmitted itself down the straps, he felt the strap slide across his palm. He tried to get his other hand up, and even that slight change in his position made him slip further.

He was almost at the end of the tether. There was blood seeping down his wrist. The crane swung him face-first against a first-floor window: the glass didn’t break, but the impact dislodged him. He fell, and something solid stopped him.

He had landed in a heap on a narrow balcony overlooking the junction, no more than a ledge with railings. He had limbs sticking through the bars and he brought them in quickly, lying on his belly with his bandaged face against the guano-encrusted stone.

[Sasha?]

“It hurts deep inside when you call me that.” He used his bloody, blistered hand to reposition his camera.

[Petrovitch, then. What do we do now? We have no plan for this. The EDF in Brussels know I have hijacked their comms, and the news that the Jihad have risen again is breaking in North America.]

“Have we lost control of the EDF?”

[Yes. I can reinstall the intercept, but they will simply ignore all orders from now on. MEA units are trying to engage with Jihadi vehicles.]

“Thought this would happen.”

[NORAD has just moved to Defcon three. The White House have declared a Defense Emergency.]

“This has nothing to with the raspizdyay kolhoznii ! It never was anything to do with them.” Petrovitch slapped his hand against the wall, leaving an imperfect print in his own blood. “Sonja.”

She picked up in an instant.

“What have you done?” she shouted.

“I’m still trying to save the Metrozone. Tell me you’re still on board.”

She tucked her hair behind her ears. “Where’s Miyamoto?”

“And the next time you send someone to be my bodyguard, make sure they’re not going to try and kill me. Now, we had a deal: I’d hand you your own country, you’d lend me half a million nikkeijin. I’m good for my end of the bargain. How about you?”

She bristled. “They are dying in their hundreds.”

“What about the couple of thousand you’re keeping up by the tower? What are they doing?” He saw her heart skip a beat. “If I’d had them here, we wouldn’t have had to go public on the AI. You holding out on me has backfired spectacularly: it’s going to lose access to most of what needs to function. Take the physical seals off the quantum computer and put it online. The AI needs it now.”

She nodded, pale, and he continued.

“I’m taking over everything about how this war is run, because you’re going to be up to your eyes in politics. You’re getting a direct line to the presidents of the EU and the U.S.A. You’re going to tell them that you can hand over a safe, stable, functioning Metrozone within a calendar year. You’re going to tell them the price is that they get their zhopi out of our faces. And you can tell them that if they even think about pressing the big red button, you will ruin their economies for the next hundred years. Got that?”

Sonja bit at her lip, and Petrovitch waited. “I thought,” she said, “we were going to take the north Metrozone for our own.”

“And we are. We’re just going to trade up after twelve months. Trust me.” He made the image she saw on her screen smile. “Have I ever let you down?”

“Not yet,” she conceded.

“I’m not interested in power. I don’t want to run anything. But no more little oversights. I need to repair the damage already done and I’m wasting time I don’t have.” He cut her off. “Still there?”

[Always.]

“Seize the satellites we need. Without them, we’re lost, and they’re going to try and take them offline anyway. Anything else you want, you take it. No subtlety. Sonja is throwing open the VirtualJapan computer for your sole use.”

[How will this end?]

“That’s not something either of us can calculate.”

[The EDF have ordered the destruction of the remaining bridges. We will be isolated from any additional assets. We are on our own.]

“We always were.”

Explosives cracked, and the central span of Waterloo Bridge lifted up, before falling in massive pieces into the black water below. Spray roared up against the river banks. Hungerford followed, then Westminster, Lambeth, Vauxhall, one after another.

Petrovitch watched the smoke and steam rise over the tops of the buildings. There was dust settling on his camera lens, and he unhooked it to blow it away. He saw his own face, not as in a mirror, but as another would see him.

“We always were,” he repeated.

[Your orders, war leader?]

“If the EDF and MEA units want to keep fighting the Outies, they can consider themselves mercenaries under my command. If they don’t, they can surrender their weapons to the nikkeijin and retreat. If they want to take us on too, I’ll leave them at the mercy of the Outies. No help from the Jihad. Otherwise, force the Outies back, break their will, send in the infantry to clear out the remaining pockets. Work out from the center a district at a time. Concentrate our forces. Use tank desant tactics to get our troops where they need to be quickly.” He took a breath. “If you can handle all that.”

[By your command.]

“Hah.” He reattached the camera and judged the distance back down to the street. A tank, huge and low and green, was chewing up the tarmac toward the junction from the north.

Petrovitch skipped over the railings and slid down them so that his feet dangled over the road. Two, two and a half meters to drop. He sprang his hands and bent his knees, and when he felt the first shock, he rolled.

He dusted himself down, and the tank commander ordered his beast of a machine to a halt. Unburned diesel drifted by in a blue cloud.

“Doctor Petrovitch.”

“Major?”

“I am supposed to disengage and withdraw to the airport,” he shouted down.

“I know.”

They both looked down the Strand. The helicopters had broken off and were heading east, but they left behind them a seething, shifting mass of semi-working cars and burning wrecks. Figures, dressed in blue, moved amongst them, and the occasional shot rang out.

Valentina, an AK in her hand, stepped out onto the street from Somerset House on the opposite corner. She strode across the road, stepping over the twisted bodies punctuating her walk, and stood in front of Petrovitch.

She took his chin in her hand and moved his head this way, then that.

“Is not improvement,” she said, and let go. “We won, yes?”

“After a fashion.”

“When cars started to move, I assumed it was you. We kept our nerve.” She was the very picture of a Soviet-era poster.

“Thank you. I would’ve warned you, but I pretty much made it up as I went along.” He looked up at the major. “Shouldn’t you be running along?”

“I stand by my commanding officer. My men stand by me.”

“Don’t you go saluting me again.” He inspected the tank’s vast metal side, and started to climb up the armor near the rear of the tracks.

“Where are we going?” asked Valentina.

“Finally, we’re going to find my wife.”

She slung the rifle over her shoulder and stuck out her hand; Petrovitch helped her up the same way. They hunkered down on top of the turret, behind the commander’s hatch.

“You never did say what happened to Marchenkho.”

Valentina looked back toward the shattered bridge and pursed her lips. “I shot him.”