Trent Jamieson - Roil

“What’s that?” Margaret asked.

“That’s the true interface, a step beyond it and you have passed out of the Roil. Over the last six weeks I have seen that red light shift from the beginning of the corridor to here. May not seem like much until you realise the Roil has moved that far forward all across Shale.”

They walked a little further on. Margaret stared back one last time at the Interface, hoping to catch a glimpse of something, not sure what. Anderson was back there somewhere, Winslow followed her gaze.

“He’ll be all right,” he said unconvincingly.

It was stupid, but guilt welled within her at leaving the Melody here. Without that carriage, she would have never made the journey, and now she had deserted it, just as she had deserted everything else she had ever loved

A flicker of movement caught her eye and her spine clenched with a cold deeper than anything Chill could create.

The red lights were coming on. Each new red globe lighting with a loud click.

Click, click, click.

Like someone running towards them in metal soled shoes.

Click.

Click.

“Look,” she said and pointed.

Winslow shuddered. “That’s impossible.”

The guards paled, but engaged their guns. There was a loud whine as they charged up. Margaret activated her weapons as well.

Click.

“How far until the entrance?”

Click.

“Another hundred yards.”

Click.

“I think we should run.”

Click

There was no argument. They sprinted down the hallway, weaponry clanging, the air electric with their terror. Margaret’s heart pounded in her chest, the Chill burned with a frigid bitter fire in her mouth.

Behind them the red lights picked up pace. Margaret reached the entrance.

As the last of them made it, the red light above the doorway clicked on. The hallway was lit with rubicund shadows. There was movement at the other end of the long hall. A boiling darkness filled with the susurration of wings.

One of the soldiers swore beneath his breath then launched a metal canister back that way. The canister clattered as it struck the ground and rolled forward a few turns. The soldier covered his ears and Margaret followed, barely in time. The explosion rippled along the hallway and the red lights nearest it burst. A backwash of cold rushed up to them. But it was quickly warmed, by a hot dry wind.

“Where’s that coming from?” Winslow hissed. “Why aren’t the doors locking? We’ve had a breach and the only locked door is the emergency exit.”

Something howled down the other end of the corridor.

Winslow cursed as he punched in the clearance code. The door swung open, onto a steep set of stairs. Winslow motioned for one of the soldiers to go first, then Margaret.

They reached the top of the stairs, just as beneath them firing started. The soldier entered in another code. The door below slammed shut.

“Keep your weapons ready,” the soldier said, but Margaret was already ahead of him, her rifle in her hands.

The soldier smiled grimly, and pushed on the door. “Of course, you’ve done all this before.”

Margaret wished that she had not.

The door swung open, the soldier leapt out, and Margaret followed. She stopped and almost dropped her rifle.

No, she had not done this before. She had never experienced this.

She could see stars, and the greater moon Argent giving off its dull light.

The stars, the glorious stars. Pinter, Swallow, the Burnished Kings and the Queens of Wondrous Storm, the constellation of Committee B. All of it she had known only in stellar maps, only in abstract.

Now here it was, spread out above her.

Winslow crashed into her back.

“Um,” he said, “I think we should hurry.”

Margaret blinked, behind her, beyond the doorway, a half-mile wide finger of darkness was bearing down, reaching out impossibly from the shivering wall of the Roil. Hot dusty air rushed at her, banging on the shutters of nearby residences. Dead trees sighed and creaked and Margaret could hear the first rumblings of transformation in them – soon they would be Roilthings.

“These are the Deserted Suburbs, though they were a lively place when we first started,” Winslow said. “Not far to go now.”

One of the guards fired into the darkness.

“Don’t be stupid,” Winslow snapped. “You’re wasting ice.”

Then he and Margaret saw what the guard was firing at.

Quarg Hounds, hundreds of them.

“Well that’s it then,” Winslow said quietly. He turned to Margaret. “There’s a secret entrance to Chapman, beneath the grey tower, two streets north of here, left and left again, past the stone arches. If you can make it there you will be safe.” He whispered a code at her, and started firing, methodically striking each hound in the skull. “When you reach the end of the hall, beneath an escutcheon embossed with the symbol of the Council, there are two buttons. A red one and a green one, push first the red then the green five times, and five times only. Then run. Don’t hang around once you have finished, run, and don’t stop until you are well within the city’s walls.”

He gripped her shoulders as his gun recharged. “Remember the order of the buttons, red then green. It’s imperative that you push them five times, and in that sequence.”

“Will it send help?”

Winslow nodded. “Now run, or all of this has been a waste. All of it.”

Margaret couldn’t do it. She had left enough people behind in the past few days. She fired off a round into the darkness, taking down a Quarg Hound, then another.

“Go. Now!” Winslow said, and there was such a bitter, awful resolution in Winslow’s eyes that run she did, towards the dim grey bulk of Chapman’s outer walls, down empty streets, broken windows and the stars her only audience.

She reached the hidden door just as the screaming began.

That was almost enough to call her back. Behind her a Quarg Hound snarled. Margaret turned smoothly, precisely, and shot it in the head, moving backwards as she fired.

She slammed into the door, her rifle aimed out at the darkness. Another Quarg Hound leapt towards her and she fired again. The beast dropped to the ground at her feet.

Margaret turned and entered in the code, she felt the Quarg Hound move behind her, and drove her rime blade, under her coat and into its skull. The wall opened, loud and sluggish. She yanked her blade free of the hound and spilled through into another long hall. The door shut behind her and she ran.

She reached the end of the hall, lifted the escutcheon by a metal door. The red and green buttons glowed dimly. She followed Winslow’s directions and a light in the wall beside her blinked on. The metal door opened.

She stumbled through the doorway and onto a narrow street, the door locked shut behind her. She ran from the door and the wall that it was inset in.

A few moments later, the ground shook, and the door shot past her head. She fell to her chest and rolled onto her back. Dust billowed towards her, the hallway was destroyed, and the wall itself dipping down. There was no help coming for Winslow and his soldiers.

There had never been any help.

Margaret could still hear weapons firing in the distance. The gunshots all too quickly gave way to silence. The Interface was gone, her wondrous Melody Amiss with it, and she was in Chapman alone with no money or friends and the Roil was on its way, and it wanted her, and it would not stop.

Sirens rang out in the distance. They had rung endlessly in the hours since Margaret had destroyed the secret tunnel. Dark military Aerokin, a sight that still held her in awe, rolled overhead, they filled the air with their oily exhalations, and shone searchlights gripped by sinuous flagella into the deserted suburbs. Ice Cannon fired. Soldiers came and crowded along the wall. Then Engineers arrived.