When the Devil Dances

CHAPTER 6 Rochester, NY, United States, Sol III 0817 EDT Sunday September 13, 2009 ad

Staff Sergeant Thomas (“Little Tommy”) Sunday realized that he just loved this shit too much.

He stepped off the platform attached to the side of the tenar and shot one of the Posleen in the head and smiled. The normal had been hacking at one of the pieces of shattered combat armor adorning the ridgeline. The extender for the suit’s grav-gun was blown away and Sunday couldn’t tell if the ACS trooper had tried fighting in direct view or if he’d been killed by one of Posleen at short range. Whatever, the position looked just about right for him to hunker down and do some killing of his own.

Reaching onto the tenar he hefted a two-hundred-pound battle-box in one hand and then marched up the hill, firing the twenty-pound railgun one-handed at any Posleen that showed its head over the ridge.

Thomas Sunday, Junior, had joined the United States Ground Forces on his seventeenth birthday. In the intervening years he had grown into the spitting image of his father, an All-Pro linebacker in his time, and “Little Tommy” now stood six foot eight inches tall in his stocking feet and weighed in at nearly three hundred pounds. He hadn’t been this big when he joined, though. His seventeenth birthday had been four months after the fall of his hometown of Fredericksburg, Virginia.

In the first landing, Fredericksburg had been surrounded and cut off from any aid by an estimated four million Posleen. A scratch force of the local Guard unit, a combat engineering battalion, and the local militia had held off the advance of the Posleen force for nearly twelve hours while a special shelter was prepared for the women and children. At the end of that long night the defenders had detonated a massive fuel-air bomb as cover for the hidden noncombatants and to remove any capability for the Posleen to use the bodies of the defenders as food, “thresh” as the Posleen called it.

The Posleen had come away from Fredericksburg with a healthy respect for the twin-turreted castle that was the symbol of the Engineers. Thomas Sunday had come away with a girlfriend and memories.

Of the people that he had grown up with, only four were left alive. Of the defenders of Fredericksburg, people with actual guns in their hands, he was one of only five still alive, including his girlfriend.

Not one member of his militia group. Not one friend, only a few acquaintances. His mother and sister had survived in the shelter and were now in a Sub-Urb in rural Kentucky. Everyone else was gone.

All of them were gone, wiped from the face of the earth as if they had never existed.

The Posleen had gone away with a respect for the Engineer, and by extension all humans. Little Tommy had come away with memories. And a burning desire to kill Posleen.

He did so now, dropping into the prone, snuggling up to the shattered combat suit for better cover and sticking his head up over the ridge to get a look at the conditions.

“Man, I have just got to get a transfer,” he muttered.

The slope downward from his position was just carpeted with dead Posleen. There were still millions left to kill, sure, but the ACS must have accounted for nearly a million all by itself and at this point the remaining ranks were finding it hard to make it up the hill for all the bodies. There was no single bit of ground visible for at least a klick from the very top of the ridge down to the valley. Every single square inch was covered in bodies, most of them two, three, even four deep. And it was apparent to Sunday that very little of it had been artillery fire; Posleen that had been hit by artillery looked more chewed up for one thing.

He set the railgun up on a tripod and set it to autofire as he opened up the battle-box. There were four cases of ammunition and a dozen battery packs in it as well as a second railgun which he set up alongside the first. Then he ganged the ammunition cases together, giving two to each of the guns, and ganged up the battery packs. When all of that was done — he pulled his personal weapon — a 7.62 Advanced Infantry Weapon that had had the original barrel switched out for a “match grade” — off his back and adjusted his shooting glasses.

“Now to have real fun,” he chuckled.

Crouching down he ran down the ridgeline a few meters, ensuring that the rest of his section was emplacing their weapons. Each of them was armed with a railgun and each three-man team manhandled a battle-box into place. Then as two of the members covered the third, the “layer” installed the last railgun in “auto” mode.

Basically, Sergeant Sunday had emplaced nearly as much firepower as half his team.

Now he found a comfortable spot to set up and peeked past a shattered cornerstone. The Posties were getting their shit together again and they just couldn’t be allowed to do that.

Whistling the opening bars to “Dixie,” Thomas Sunday, Junior, took a bead on a God King and gently squeezed the trigger. Just like a tit.

“Speaking of which,” he said to himself as the first God King pitched backwards off his tenar. “One of these days I’ve just got to get down to North Carolina.”

The first thing that Wendy noticed was the glow-paint. It was set to the flattest, whitest intensity. The room was almost painfully neat. Part of this was an intentional minimalism; there was very little of a personal nature at all. The walls were undecorated Galplas. The standard building material of the Galactic manufacturers of the Sub-Urb could be adjusted to reflect light in practically any tone or shade so naturally some bureacrat had decreed that there were only four that could be used: institutional green, institutional white, institutional blue and institutional salmon. These were institutional white and looked as if they’d just been extruded. Since this was an outer portion of Sector F that might, in fact, be the case. The combination of the light, the impersonal nature of the room and the lack of ornamentation gave the quarters a greasy, clinical feeling.

The second thing she noticed was the locker. The dull gray, unmarked polygon squatted in the far corner like some sort of mechanical troll. The material looked like regular Galplas, but it clearly was plasteel; the container was more proof against burglary than a steel safe. The Indowy manufacture was readily recognizable to any resident of a Sub-Urb — all the high security sections were sealed with the same stuff — and nothing but a high-watt plasma torch or a molecular grinder could cut it. There was a standard issue wall-locker in the room as well, so the plasteel safe was probably for security purposes.

With those exceptions, the room was otherwise standard for the Sub-Urb. By the memory-plastic door was an issue emergency locker, the only thing unusual about it being that it hadn’t been vandalized. According to the seal and the inventory on the exterior, if she opened it up it should contain four emergency breath masks, a limited first aid kit and a pair of Nomex gloves. If it did, it would be the first complete set that Wendy had seen in four years. One wall sported a 27” flatscreen viewer and the carpet was basic polylon. All in all, it looked like an original issue personal living quarters. Or what they had looked like when Wendy had first been dropped in this underground hell.

The girl sitting on the room’s single bed was wearing only a pair of running shorts and a midriff top. That was not terribly incongruous because she was very good looking. Her skin had the teenager fineness of a recent rejuvenation and her clearly unsupported breasts were high and firm. Strawberry-blond hair cascaded over her crossed arms and the white coverlet in a titian waterfall while sharp green eyes regarded her visitors with wary intelligence.

“Annie,” said the doctor, “this is Wendy Cummings. She’s going to help you with your recovery.” The psychologist smiled cheerily. “We think it will help you at this stage in your development to get out a little more.”

What Dr. Christine Richards did not say was that the post-op team was petrified. The latest round of cognitive tests had shown that, despite the speech impediment, Anne O. Elgars was fully recovered from her multi-year coma and experimental surgery. What they were not sure of was that it was, in fact, Anne Elgars.

“Hi, Anne,” Wendy said, holding out her hand and giving a lopsided smile. “We’re supposed to be ‘compatible’ as friends. We’ll see. Sometimes psychologists can’t tell their ass from their elbow.”

The person who might or might not be Anne Elgars tilted her head to the side then returned the slight smile with a broad grin. “A… Ahm A… Annie tuh fr… en.”

“Glad to hear it,” said Wendy with a blinding smile in return. “I think we’ll have lots to talk about. I understand you were in 33^rd Division at Occoquan?”

“Well,” said Dr. Richards. “I think I’ll leave you two girls alone. Annie, if you would, I’d like you to help Wendy with tasks. Now that you’re recovering it’s important that every pair of hands help.”

The expression slid from the redhead’s face like rain. “Unnnnkay Derrrr…”

“Don’t worry,” said Wendy with a glance at the psychologist. “We’ll be fine.”

As the door closed on the doctor Wendy stuck her thumb behind her upper teeth and flicked it in the direction of the retreating specialist.

“I hate psychologists,” she said making a moue of distaste. “Fucking shrinks.”

Elgars’ mouth worked for a moment then with an expression of frustration she held both of her hands palm upward.

“To qualify for front-line combat as a female you have to pass a psych eval,” said the blonde, tying up her ponytail in frustration as she sat next to Elgars on the bed. “And it’s a real Catch-22. They won’t admit anyone who is ‘unstable,’ but a fighting personality is considered borderline unstable for a female.”

Elgars’ mouth worked again and she grunted a laugh. “Fum… fu. Umbitch!”

Wendy dimpled. “Yeah. They’re all sons-of-bitches. I agree. But they can fuck themselves. So, you’ve got amnesia? And a speech impediment, obviously.”

“Uhhh… yuhhhh,” Elgars said with another flash of impatience.

“Don’t worry about it,” Wendy said with a smile. “We’ve got plenty of time to get the story. But can I ask one question?”

“Yuhhh.”

“Is that a weapons locker? Because if it is I’m really pissed. They took all my shit away when I got to this damned hole. I go to the range at least once a week, but they won’t even let me try out for the security force.”

“Yuhhh,” Elgars said with a quizzical expression. “A… Ah doooo.” She stopped and her mouth worked. “Ah… don’n… know wha…”

“You don’t know what any of it is?” Wendy asked. “You know the words, you just can’t say them, right?”

“Yaaah.”

“Okay.” Wendy hopped off the bed and walked over to the featureless polygon. It was about two meters high, with six “facets” on the side and no apparent locks or doors. “How does it open?”

Elgars slid off the bed and swayed over to the locker. Her speech may have left much to be desired, but her movements were efficient and graceful.

Wendy regarded her carefully and smiled. “Have you been working out?”

“Phy… skal ther’py,” Elgars answered, placing her hand on the face of the polygon. “A’ so’ o’r stu’.”

The front of the cylinder opened to either side with a blast of gun-oil scent, and Wendy’s jaw practically hit the floor. It wasn’t a couple of personal items, it was a damn arsenal.

The left door was hung with dress uniforms. The officer’s dress blues on top, with rank marks for a captain, were practically coated in awards and medals. At one point, besides being expert in rifle, pistol and submachine gun, Elgars had passed, in succession, the Army Advanced Marksmanship Program and Marine Corps Sniper School, the last of which was practically unheard of. She was a veteran of infantry combat, as denoted by her Combat Infantry Badge, and had apparently earned two Purple Hearts and a Silver Star along the way. But the capstone was the simple device on the right breast, a gold “600.”

“Oh, shit,” Wendy whispered. Besides the uniforms — the right door was hung with camouflage and Fleet Strike grays for some reason — there were a half dozen weapons in the locker. Taking place of prominence was something Wendy had only seen pictures of: a Barrett M-82A1 .50 caliber sniper rifle. It clearly had seen use, but before being put away had been factory serviced and sealed in PreserFilm. There also were two different submachine guns, with loaded clips dangling on harnesses, a couple of pistols, one a silenced Glock and the other something odd and bulky with a laser sight and silencer, and a “bullpup” style assault rifle. Hanging in the back was a combat harness with full loadout for a team sniper.

“How the hell did you get this in here?” Wendy asked. “The Sub-Urbs are zero-tolerance zones!”

“Uah… Ahmmm ’ct’ve… Aaaaactive…”

“You’re active duty?” Wendy said with a laugh. “Sorry, but…”

“Ahmmmm Ssssixssss…”

“Six Hundred,” the former resident of Fredericksburg said with a sober nod. “And even the dead of the Six Hundred are still listed as active duty.”

Elgars smiled and nodded. “Buuuu… wha’sssss,” she gestured into the locker.

“And you don’t know what this stuff is, do you?” Wendy asked.

“Nuuuu.”

Wendy regarded her levelly and green eyes met her blue.

“Okay, let’s find something out. Do you have something that shows you can have this?”

Elgars gestured at the uniforms, but Wendy just shook her head.

“No, for the shit-head panic children in Security we’ll need more than that. Any documentation specifically stating you’re authorized? You got a gun card?”

Elgars reached in and extracted an envelope. Inside, on driver’s license-sized card, was a simple note:

“Captain A. O. Elgars is a currently serving member of the United States Armed forces on detached duty and her right to carry weapons irrespective of type or caliber in any portion of the United States or its Territories for any reason she at her sole discretion shall deem reasonable and prudent shall not be infringed. Any questions regarding these orders shall be directed to the Department of War.” It was endorsed by the Continental Army commander and the commander of the Ten Thousand. The back had her picture and personal data.

The license was standard issue. At the beginning of the war the right of the Federal military to conduct maneuvers in and around non-threatened zones had been repeatedly questioned. Among the questions raised was whether military personnel should be restricted in access to their weapons, especially in and around cities which had anti-gun laws.

Most of the complaints had ended after the Fredericksburg landings, but when a detached brigade of infantry was surprised and overwhelmed in Seattle, with their weapons still in the unit armory, the question was settled once and for all. Serving members of the armed forces were not required to wear uniforms at all times. But for “the duration of the current emergency” serving military personnel were required, by Federal law, to be armed at all times with a “basic load” for their primary weapons. Posleen landings occurred at random and on the balance it had been decided that the occasional irrational act was balanced by the security of an armed response to the invasion.

“Now the important question,” said Wendy with another smile. “What to wear.”

Elgars smiled back and reached for the Battle Dress Uniform. She fingered the lapel with a puzzled expression.

“Do you recognize the uniform?” Wendy asked. “It’s BDUs. That rank shows you’re a captain. Do you remember being a captain?”

Elgars shook her head and shrugged. “Ser… sar… sar’nt.”

“You were a sergeant?” Wendy asked. “Why do you have captain’s tracks?”

“Sarn’… pri’ate.” Elgars face worked and she banged her head. “Staaaa… No… Ahhhh!”

“Calm down,” Wendy said, shaking her shoulder. “Whatever you were, you’re a captain now.” Wendy looked at her for a moment and shook her head. “Have they given you any background on why you’re here? Or even where ‘here’ is?”

Elgars shook her head and gestured around at the room. “Is an’ off’ce a’ I see.”

Wendy took a breath and thought about where to start. “Okay, you know you’re underground, right?”

“Righ’.” Elgars nodded at that. “Su’-ur’.”

“A Sub-Urb,” Wendy agreed. “Have they shown you a map?”

“N’.”

Wendy picked up the remote for the flatscreen and punched in a code. “This is the information channel. Did they show you that?”

“N’.”

“Christ,” Wendy said. “Okay, here goes.” She flipped through a menu and brought up a schematic of a cube. “Welcome to the Franklin Sub-Urb. Here’s Getting Around One Oh One.

“The Burb is a cube. The top of the cube is one hundred feet underground with the area over it reinforced with ‘honeycomb’ anti-shock armor. The cube is broken into eight sectors and each sector is broken into subsectors. The primary sectors are letters, A through H. The subsectors are numbers and once you figure out the way that breaks down if I say something like ‘C8-8-4’ you know right where you’re at. The subsectors are each four stories high and four blocks wide and deep. They start numerically at the center and work outward both from the center and from the joining line to the next sector. The sectors are eight subsectors, or eight blocks, wide and eight deep, but they are still under construction and a few of them continue out beyond eight subsectors.

“Right now you’re in Sector F, Subsector 1-1-4. That means that you’re right at the top of F, on the border with E and four blocks out from the center. Sector A is security, emergency services, administration and a few living quarters, mainly for administration and security. Sectors B through D are living quarters. Although some of C and D are given over to support. Sector F is hospital and environmental support and E through H are generally given over to support including a fusion reactor in H and an extensive hydroponics and waste reprocessing section in G.

“The main personnel entrance is above Sector A and joins A near the juncture of the other three living sectors. Just outside of it is a large parking garage where most of the vehicles used by the evacuees are parked. On the southwest quadrant, adjacent to Sector D, is the main resupply route. Supplies come in there and are transported down elevators to Sector H.

“There are primary movement routes running along primary sector junctures — that is, where four sectors converge — and at four points within each sector. Prime Corridors have slide-ways, walkways and cart paths. Secondary movement routes are found at every other subsector juncture point. Secondary Corridors do not have slideways and you have to be careful of carts and vice versa. The small corridors where residences are found also can be used to move around; they are referred to as tertiary corridors. Except in special cases, carts are not permitted in residential corridors.

“If you get lost,” she continued, hitting a command so that a list of icons came up, and pointing to an icon that looked like a computer, “look for this symbol. That’s an info-access terminal. You can query one as to your location and how to get to just about anywhere in the Urb. You also can ask for a ‘sprite,’ which is a Galactic supplied micrite. It’s about the size of a fly and glows. It will leave and take the shortest primary route to your destination. Follow it. It will stop if you stop and leave when you reach your destination.”

She gestured to the rest of the icons. “There’s other symbols you need to get to know. There’s symbols for security, bathrooms, cafeterias and stuff like that. Most of them are sort of self-explanatory, but you need to get familiar with them.

“You are permitted to leave the Sub-Urb, but it is strongly discouraged and no unauthorized personnel are permitted into the Urb and no military personnel are permitted unless they have written orders or are on hospital status and assigned… like you.”

“You’ gi’ ’is for,” Elgars said.

“Yes, I’ve given this lecture a few times,” Wendy said with a grim smile. “I’ve been in this fucker since it was just a giant echoing hole.” She thought about it for a moment. “That’s all you really need to know for now. There’s some minimal emergency information you should get familiar with, but it’s available on channel 141. I’d recommend watching that fairly religiously for a couple of weeks; there’s all sorts of tips to getting around. Any major questions for now?”

Elgars shook her head and went over to the other locker to get a bra. The locker had a chest of drawers in it and several sets of civilian clothes, mostly blue jeans and dresses. On the right hand side was a shoe rack with one pair of running shoes, two sets of shined combat boots and nine pairs of high heeled shoes, most of them black. The only thing that showed any sign of use was the running shoes.

“Man,” Wendy breathed. “You’ve got enough clothes for five people down here.”

Elgars made a questioning sound in her throat and Wendy shrugged.

“There aren’t any clothes getting made these days; all the mills make stuff for the Army. So whatever people brought, and most of ’em only brought a suitcase or two, that’s what they had to wear.” Wendy gestured at her own outfit of a dungaree type shirt and slightly oversized jeans. “They make a few things to keep people dressed and shoes, but none of it is ‘fun clothes.’ You’ve got more dresses than I’ve seen in three years.”

Elgars looked at them then at Wendy. They seemed to be about the same size so the captain gestured. “Yuuuh… waaa… ?”

The blonde dimpled prettily and pushed the air off her right ear. “Not now. Maybe some other time if I can borrow something that’d be great.”

Elgars reached into the locker and pulled out one of the dresses. It was a violet wrap, consisting of multiple layers of lace in a variety of shades. She looked at it with distaste for a moment then thrust it at Wendy. “Take.”

“Are you sure?” Wendy asked. The dress was beautiful.

“Suuurre.” Elgars’ face worked for a moment as if she was going to spit. “Ah don’t lahk purple,” she continued in a soft southern accent. There was no trace of a lisp.

Elgars looked around with interest. The corridors were wide — wide enough to slip a car through with difficulty — and high. And they seemed to go on forever. Every fifty meters there was a set of stairs and every hundred meters there was an escalator flanked by an elevator. At each such intersection there was another emergency pack, but unlike the one in her room, most of these were hanging open and empty. The plastic walls changed color, but all were calming pastels. The tones were pleasant, though, not institutional in any way. Occasionally there were walls of what looked like stone but with a smooth look as if it had been extruded or melted.

Overhead there were regular sprinklers and innumerable pipes with cryptic markings like “PSLA81.” At intervals the one of the pipes that was marked with a red and blue pattern would have an extension downward to a double headed ending. Since it was valved and capped, Elgars imagined that it was probably designed to supply emergency water for some purpose.

The main corridors were open but there were memory-plastic doors on either side, some of them marked and others not. Most of the ones that they passed seemed to be residences although a few were marked with names like “The Cincinnati Room.” At intervals in the main corridors there were open doors with control panels on both sides. These were heavier and seemed to be designed to close in the event of an emergency.

At every set of stairs or escalator was a sign: “Primary evacuation route” with an arrow up, down or pointing into the corridor. Flanking it was another: “Secondary evacuation route” pointing in a different direction. In addition to the emergency signs there were signs with some of the icons that Wendy had pointed out. Elgars was fairly sure she could figure out the bathroom and the cafeteria signs. But what was the one with three things that looked like feathers?

As Wendy had pointed out, there were regular markings on the walls, a letter followed by three numbers. In their perambulations they had proceeded out of Sector F and into B. It seemed to Elgars that they were taking a very roundabout route; they seemed to be staying in personnel quarters corridors and away from the main thoroughfares.

Most of the residential corridors were narrow, no more than two persons wide, and showed signs of wear. In one area most of the glow-paint had been damaged, leaving long sections of near total darkness. Wendy didn’t stop but Elgars noticed that she seemed to be much more cautious in her movements, slowing as she approached intersections as if to listen for other footsteps, and the few people that they passed seemed to avoid eye-contact.

“This is the older section,” Wendy said quietly as they were headed down a secondary corridor. This one had scorch marks on the walls as if a fire had once raged through the area and the damage was never completely repaired. “I was here when this corridor was as new and shiny as your room. But it’s near a maintenance section now and… well… it’s sort of a bad neighborhood. On the other hand, the security pantywaists don’t like it much, so I don’t think we have to worry about them.”

What they did have to worry about became evident as they came to a residential intersection. In the better sections there was a slight widening of the corridors at the intersection, a water fountain and signs to the significant support facilities in the area. Two of the three corridors leading to this spot had had their glow-paint almost entirely stripped away and the water fountain had been ripped out of the wall and was sitting in a pool of rusty water.

As Wendy stepped cautiously into the shadows along one wall, there was the rasp of a match and a group of figures emerged from one of the darkened corridors.

“Well, whatta we got here?” the leader asked, lighting her cigarette. The girl was below normal height and unhealthily skinny. Her face had been badly tattooed with a figure that was probably a spider and her hair was pulled up in patches that had been dyed a variety of colors. She was wearing heavy boots, short shorts and a midriff top. Elgars would have laughed at the combination if it wasn’t for the aluminum baseball bat she was swinging in one hand.

“I think we’ve got trespassers,” giggled another. This one was above average height and heavyset with wide hips and pendulous breasts. The two would have made a comical couple were it not for the weapons in their hands.

“Whatcha got in the bag, cutey,” the leader said as the other three started to spread out.

“Nothing you want,” Wendy replied quietly. “You just go your way and we’ll go ours.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” the heavier one said, pulling a chain out from behind her back. “I really don’t.”

“Do we kill them?” Elgars asked with perfect clarity. She was standing quite still, her weight forward on the balls of her feet and her hands at her side. The question was asked in an absolutely toneless voice.

“Uh, no,” Wendy said. “Security gets all pissy when you do that.”

“Okay,” Elgars said and moved. From Wendy’s perspective, one moment she was totally still and the next she was practically chest to chest with the leader.

The captain blocked the swing of the bat with her forearm — she was well inside the arc — and ripped the ring out of the leader’s nostril. “That’s to get your attention,” she said in a deep voice just before she head-butted the leader into the far wall.

Wendy’s hand dipped into the bag and came up holding the Glock, which more or less stopped the other three in their tracks. “Oh, look, there was something you guys could have used. And, lookey, it’s got a silencer on it. Which means that when I blow you all over the wall, security won’t even hear. Now, why don’t you three just take off while my companion finishes playing?” They took one look at the pistol and decided there were corridors that needed their attention. Like, now.

Wendy winced as Elgars kicked the henchman in a place that is, arguably, more sensitive in women than in men. The chain had disappeared somewhere down a corridor and a knife was already on the floor broken at the tang. The woman was waving one hand in front of her face, fighting to get a word out, when Elgars followed it up with a kick to the side of the head.

“If you didn’t want to play, you shouldn’t have brought the ball,” the captain said, bouncing on her toes with her hands up at shoulder height, fingers folded and palms out. Again, the voice was decidedly deep and clear.

“I think you’re done here, Annie,” Wendy said, stepping over to the leader to check for a pulse. There was a good solid beat, which was nice considering the bang her head had taken. Wendy flipped out a penlight and checked the pupils. The right pupil was a little sluggish but Wendy figured she had a better than fifty/fifty chance of waking up. The henchman was even better off, already starting to groan into consciousness.

“Damn, you two are luckier than you have any right to be,” Wendy said, straightening up. “I’d suggest you run by the infirmary, though.” She kicked the leader in the shin. “You’ve got a pretty good concussion going there.

“Right,” Wendy said, “I think we should get as far from here as possible.”

“ ’Ka,” Elgars mouthed, lowering her hands. “N’d t’ ge’ ou’ o’ D’ge.”

A few turns, a short secondary corridor and they were back in well-maintained corridors as if the encounter had never taken place. These corridors were, for the most part, not crowded. The one exception was an open area where at least four hundred people, mostly older but with a scattering of younger women and children, sat on metal chairs playing board games, talking and sipping drinks. One end of the area was an elaborate playground, like hell’s own hamster trail. It was mainly around this centerpiece that the children ran screaming happily.

Wendy didn’t even pause, continuing her unerring navigation towards their eventual goal.

“We’re almost there,” she said, taking another up escalator. “This place is laid out really logically. Once you get used to it you can find anything. All the security stuff is up and towards the main entrance which is on the inner corner of A.”

Elgars pointed to a large red box on the wall of the corridor. It was the second one that they had passed. It was marked in a similar manner to the emergency packs in the rooms, but had a large sign “For ER Personnel only.” And it apparently hadn’t been looted.

“It’s an attack pack,” Wendy said. “There is one in each subsector, located at the subsector’s 4/4/4 point; that’s short for the middle of the subsector. It’s got basic rescue and fire gear in case of an emergency. There’s some class B breath packs, a trauma kit including foldable stretcher, a defib kit, firefighting gear and an entry kit. They can only be opened by qualified emergency/rescue personnel; there’s a palm print scanner on them. I can get one open; I’m in the fire/rescue reserve force. I’m hoping to get on a regular crew soon, if I can pass the Physical Performance Eval.”

Elgars pointed to the sprinklers on the ceiling. “F’r’?”

“Yeah, they’re for fire suppression,” Wendy agreed. “And some of the areas that have a lot of computer equipment are Halon fed. But even with them, there’s the possibility of a large breakout. And if a big fire breaks out, we’re screwed. This thing is like a ship; you have to kill the fire before it kills you. The alternative is going to the surface, and if we wanted to be up there, we wouldn’t be stuck down here.”

“Wur ahh… are we?” Elgars asked gesturing around. She apparently had decided to ignore the earlier adventure.

“You mean in the world?” Wendy responded. “They didn’t tell you?”

“Nuu…” the captain said. “Ne’er ask…”

“Didn’t want to ask the shrinks, huh?” Wendy said, taking another turn. This corridor was less well lit and appeared to be unused. The doors along both sides all showed the red panel of being locked. “We’re in the mountains of North Carolina. Does that mean anything to you?”

“Nuuu…” Elgars said with a shrug then frowned. “S… saw a m… map. A… Ash…”

“Not near Asheville,” Wendy said with a snort. “It’s a long story.”

“Tell.”

Wendy shrugged. “When the Posleen dropped on… Fredericksburg,” Wendy said with only a slight catch in her voice over the destruction of her hometown, “most of the Sub-Urbs weren’t ready for people to move in. But there were nearly two million refugees from Northern Virginia. Some of them could go back but… well most of F’Burg was just gone. I mean, between the battleships and the fighting and the Bomb it had been smashed flat. And we were going to have to move out soon because the Posleen were just coming back. And most of the survivors were… well… not in the greatest shape…

“Anyway, this was the only Urb that was almost finished on the East Coast. It was the first one started; the local congressional representative had managed to wrangle getting it placed in his district even though it’s in a really stupid spot.”

Elgars made another sound and Wendy grimaced.

“Well, first of all, all the other Urbs are placed near interstates, usually near existing cities. Asheville has two really huge ones and they’re both full. But we’re near a place called Franklin. It’s just a little town in southern North Carolina, a dot on the map. The only reason we’re here is because of the congressman; he’d been in Congress for just about forever and was the committee chairman for the procurement process. So this was where the first Sub-Urb went.

“Supplying us, what little supplies we get, is a real pain because the trucks have to compete with the supplies for the corps that’s defending Rabun Gap. And the corps is practically on top of us; their main rear area supply point is Franklin, so at first we had all sorts of trouble. There’s a Kipling poem that points out that soldiers aren’t ‘plaster saints.’ Mix a corps of soldiers with an underground city full of women and things got… bad for a while. So now they stay out there and we stay in here and almost everybody’s happy.”

She shook her head after a moment. “We’re just about the only Sub-Urb that has that problem, too. You see, we’re just about the closest Urb to a defense line. I mean, there are a couple of others that are this close and then there was the Rochester Urb…” She paused and shuddered.

“Ba… ?” Elgars asked.

“Yeah,” Wendy said quietly. “Worse than F’Burg really. The Posleen got into the Urb and after that there just wasn’t anything to do. There’s really only one way in and out. The defenders put up a good fight, or so we hear. There… weren’t any survivors.”

“Urgh…”

“Yeah,” Wendy said. “That’s why whenever the news mentions fighting around Rabun Gap we sort of tense up. If the Posleen come through there’s not much we’re going to be able to do.”

Elgars just nodded and kept looking around. Like Wendy, most of the people were poorly dressed. The exception were one or two teenage females who were wearing flashy shorts and midriff tops. The clothing was clearly new, but the style was… different from the rest of the inhabitants.

Wendy noted her glances and frowned. “Corps whores,” she whispered.

“Whuh?”

Wendy shrugged again. “Everybody finds their niche here. Some of them turn into drones, some of them decide to have some fun running the corridors and acting like they’re bad. Others… find a party. The soldiers up top are restricted from coming down here; there were just… too many problems when they had unrestricted access.” She frowned and it was apparent that there was a wealth of stories in that simple sentence. “So after a while the head of security and the corps commander reached an agreement and now the soldiers don’t come down here. That doesn’t mean we’re restricted from leaving. So some of the girls, women too… ply a very old trade on the surface.”

“I do’… n’er’stan’,” Elgars tried to enunciate.

Wendy looked at her with an arched eyebrow. “You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?”

“Nu.”

Wendy sighed and hitched the bag higher. “They trade sex for money, Captain. And goods. Like better clothes and food than you can get down here. And electronics gear: that’s almost nonexistent these days.”

Elgars looked around at the high plastic walls and the unending corridors. She thought about being stuck in here for years and shook her head. “So?”

Wendy looked at her again and shook her head. “Never mind. It would take too long to explain why people find that bad.”

The captain nodded as they turned into a door marked “S A Securities.” There was a small alcove on the far side and another door which was locked.

Wendy pressed a buzzer and looked up at a security camera. “Lemme in, David, I bring a visitor.”

“You’re carrying, honey. I’m surprised you made it.” The deep voice came from a speaker almost directly overhead as the door buzzed.

“I just walked around all the detectors,” Wendy said as she entered the sparse room beyond. “And it was a good thing I was.”

There were steel weapons lockers with mesh fronts along the left hand side of the room. The shape of rifles and submachine guns could be seen faintly though the mesh. Opposite the door was a low desk; as Wendy and Elgars entered the room a dark, burly man pushed a wheelchair out and came around to the front.

“You have problems?” the man asked.

“Nothing we couldn’t handle,” Wendy said with a shrug, still bleeding off adrenaline.

“Who’s your visitor?” the man said, watching her with eyes that knew darned well that it hadn’t been something minor.

“David Harmon, meet Captain Anne O. Elgars,” Wendy said with a smile. “Captain Elgars took a little damage a while back and she’s not quite up to form.” Wendy frowned. “Actually, she’s got amnesia, so she doesn’t have a clue about weapons. But she used to. We need to see what she remembers.”

“Remembers?” Harmon said with a frown. “My legs don’t remember running. How are her hands going to remember shooting?”

“The doctor said she’s remembering most of her motor skills; she can write and eat and all that stuff. And… well… I think the Blades would safely say that she recalls some basic fighting skills. I thought we could try at least.”

“You ever been on a range?” Harmon asked Anne. “Blades?” he queried Wendy.

“Crazy Lucy and Big Boy,” Wendy said, jerking her chin at Elgars. “She spent most of her time toying with them.”

“I do-o…” Elgars said with a frown. “I do-o-o ’member… W’a’n’t toy’ng.”

“The captain’s still recovering,” Wendy said quietly. “She’s…”

“Got a serious speech impediment,” Harmon said. “Yeah, well ain’t none of us whole in this fucking place,” he continued with a snort and a gesture at his legs.

He unzipped the ballistic bag and started extracting hardware. “MP-5SPD. Nice. Silencer package. Did you used to do point, Captain?”

“Du-du-dunno,” Elgars answered. “Do’ ’member.”

“She also had a Barrett in the locker,” Wendy added.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Harmon said with a frown. He pulled out the next piece and frowned. “Desert Eagle .44. This is not the weapon of a sniper. At least, not one from a regular unit. Were you in special forces or something?”

“No,” Elgars said and frowned. “At least, I d-d-don’t thin’. P-p-papers s-s-say Th-th-Thirt’-Third. Then uh S-s-six hunnert.” She frowned again and snarled, bearing even, white teeth. “S’all wrong.”

Harmon looked over at Wendy with a lifted eyebrow. “You didn’t mention that.”

“She’s on ‘detached duty,’ ” Wendy said with a shrug. “Hospital detachment. I don’t know if they’re going to put her back through training or what. But it makes sense for her to re-learn the basics.”

“Uh huh,” the weapons instructor grunted. “Makes as much sense as anything else that has happened to me in the last six years.”

He cleared the chamber on both weapons and rolled over to a locker. “Get her a set of earmuffs and I’ll set up the range.”

Harmon extended the Glock to the captain and watched her hands carefully. “The weapon is not loaded, but you never take a person’s word for that. Keep it pointed downrange and keep your finger off the trigger.”

Elgars took the pistol with a puzzled expression and rotated it from side to side. The indoor range had been set up with man-sized targets placed at various distances between five and thirty meters. She glanced in the chamber and cocked her head to one side like a bird then picked up one of the magazines. “S’fam-uh… famil’ar. Kin ah lock an’ load?”

“Go ahead,” said Harmon watching carefully.

Elgars swept the unloaded weapon back and forth keeping it pointed downrange. “Th’somethin’ wrong,” she said, turning to look at the instructor. Following her body the pistol swung to the left and down. Directly at the wheelchair-bound range-master.

“Up!” Harmon said sharply, blocking the swing of the pistol up and out. “Keep it pointed up and downrange! Go ahead and pick up the magazine and seat it, then lock and load. This time, though, keep it pointed downrange, okay?”

“S’rry,” Elgars said with a frown. “S’all wron’. S’righ’ an’ wron’ a’ same time.” She picked up the magazine with a puzzled expression, but there was no fumbling as it was seated and she jacked back the slide.

“Uh, ‘The firing line is clear’?” Wendy said with a grin.

“ ’Re’y on uh lef’?” Elgars muttered with a frown.

Harmon smiled. “Ready on the left? The left is ready. Ready on the right? The right is ready. Firing line is clear. Open fire.”

Before the former police officer’s chin could hit his chest all five targets had taken two shots in the upper chest and one in the middle of the face. The sound was thunder, a series of blasts like a low speed machine gun, then the magazine dropped to the ground and the weapon was reloaded. He had never seen her hand move to pick up the spare; the weapon seemed to reload itself by magic.

“Bloody hell,” Harmon muttered while Wendy just stood there with her mouth open.

“Was that okay, sar’nt?” Elgars asked in a shy little voice.

“Yeah, that was pretty good,” Harmon said, waving away the cordite residue. “Pretty good.”