Matthew Costello - Rage

“You mean… now?”

“Hit the button. Get them up. And then we got to get out of here, blow this place up.”

As though intimidated by the implication of what he was about to do, Lassard hesitated before turning back to his terminal.

Had one key stroke ever had more importance?

They all walked closer to him for the fateful moment.

The I.T. expert took a breath.

Raine sensed that Portman, standing next to him, was about to gruffly bark, Just fucking do it.

It seemed to take that long.

“Okay,” Lassard said. “Still… all good. And-”

His fingers hit the keyboard.

Nobody moved. Nobody said anything.

Then the monitor started to send a wave of information flying across the screen.

A last act for these computers before they were blown into more useless junk for locals to scavenge.

“That’s it,” Lassard said, his eyes moving left and right as he looked at the screens. “It’s happening. Sweet God, it’s happening. ”

Marshall looked at Raine, then over at Portman and Elizabeth.

“Time for us to go.”

They started moving as fast as they could out of the hideout.

Lassard lagged behind, as if his eyes couldn’t believe what they were seeing, the result of his handiwork.

“Lassard! Move it!” Marshall yelled.

And finally Lassard backed away, stood up. He threw the switch on the timed explosive off to the side of his desk.

He turned and picked up a pack that seemed empty.

Hard for him to leave, Raine thought.

Then the four of them started out, into the underground tunnels and warren of Subway Town.

It wasn’t long-minutes, actually, after they heard the thunderous explosion behind them-that they came to the place where they were to split up. Marshall and the others one way, Raine off to a tunnel that led to where they had left a car for him.

“Captain-”

“Just remember we’ll be waiting for you, Raine. Don’t let us down.”

Raine smiled. Elizabeth came up to him. “And when you come back, we’ll have to get the nanotrites out. For now, though, be glad you have them.”

Portman stuck out his arm, a chunky finger jabbing the air. “And I want every piece of ordnance returned, Lieutenant. Resistance property.” Then Portman grinned-as close to a good-bye as he could get.

Raine nodded.

Without a word he turned and started running down the tunnel, one last mission before he could return to the three of them again.

Before he could return to the battle, to this war that was now as much his as theirs.

In each Ark-their computers never fully powered down-something registered.

Each Ark had remained in communication with the others throughout the century. They even could take note when disaster befell an Ark somewhere, crushed by the shifting of a tectonic plate, or desperately struggling to emerge to the surface before being trapped by bedrock.

But though linked, each Ark was its own entity.

Each had dominion over its own planned time for emergence, its own response system to emergencies.

That had been core to the Ark Project.

No longer.

Something new registered as each Ark continued to get signals from the other Arks.

And the code being executed carried with it all the information needed for each Ark to act in self-preservation.

A false reading of danger. Mimicked in each Ark’s computer, simultaneous, and not recognized as false. Danger-to which there could only be one instantaneous response.

To rise…

To begin what could be a perilous journey to an unknown surface.

And all the Arks of what had been the government of the United States-the ones still intact, those not already surfaced, not destroyed or hopelessly damaged-sent a signal to the great bore machines that sat at each nose, rock-chewing machines that could screw the Ark through any rock… to whatever world awaited.

The Arks began to dig their way out.

Some journeyed in a straight path, easily grinding through loose rock and debris.

Others faced mammoth chunks of bedrock that required a steady, endless digging that to a human would have seemed hopeless, but to the lifesaving brain of the computer was merely what it had to do.

Others became damaged during their emergence, crushed as rock shifted, quickly killing the still-sleeping survivors.

But whether successful or not, all the Arks struggled to be born into this world.

And as they came closer to the surface, as a reading signaled that the new world and the surface was only minutes away, revival systems began their process, readying the Ark passengers for what might have to be a quick exit.

And outside, for these Arks, people waited.

The Arks rose.

Bringing with them to the surface something the people outside had thought an impossibility: a chance to fight back.

Before these emerging Arks, they had been a mere resistance, with all the weaknesses and hopelessness that such movements can bring.

Now, on this new day, it turned.

It changed.

It was no longer a resistance.

It was a war.

For all those who had lived in fear, who were imprisoned or brutalized-for everyone who hated the Authority with a rage that seemed to consume their lives-on this day…

… it began.

Dedicated to the entire team at id Software.

Your creative vision and passion made this new world come to life.