closed ones were being reopened. The roads were clogged with buses (only the gas rationing had forestalled gridlock) and downtown the crowds were thicker than ever. Still, Gloria’s own neighborhood had hardly changed. All the attention was on places like Sterling Heights and Livonia, where the remaining plants were. As for the suburbs, she’d heard that the government had been requisitioning all the foreclosed McMansions and subdividing them to create cheap worker accommodation. She imagined the look on the faces of the homeowners association and laughed.
However the ring of slums between downtown and the industrial belt was being ignored, if anything there was even less interest in regenerating it now that war production was at the top of everyone’s minds. Gloria sighed. At least the muggers were keeping a low profile. The cops weren’t playing catch-and-release any more, the ones who got arrested tended to be drafted and the ones who fought back usually got splattered by the huge guns all the cops were carrying now.
“Granny!” The young boy’s voice roused Gloria from her thoughts. Ah, there they were, her eldest son and his family, come to visit her at last. “Granny, what’s that?” Her grandson was staring out the windows, which had a fine view of the city due to their location near the top of the city's tallest skyscraper. The boy seemed to be pointing at something near the horizon. Gloria turned stiffly in her chair and strained to focus on the distant buildings. There was an odd flickering over an intersection, perhaps two miles to the north, and a glint that seemed to come from something falling out of the sky. Her heart beat faster as she realized that the irregular, chattering roar that had been slowly building was the sound of many, many guns being fired. Was it the demons? Had the army shot down a demon? The sound of gunfire died away. Several people were standing at the windows now, asking out loud the same questions she was thinking.
The molten rock literally exploded out of nowhere, the unstable portal hurling great sprays of magma in every direction. Many who’d seen the images of the portal opening over Sheffield had remarked on the eerie beauty of the hellish fountain, unfolding in its first few seconds like a giant deadly firework. This attack was different, a raging beast that seemed to lashed out at random without symmetry or reason. Gloria winced as the first gouts of lava reached the bottom of their arcs, smashing into buildings with a spray of fire and rubble. The freeway intersection collapsed and disappeared in a vast cloud of smoke, peppered with tiny gouts of fire as gasoline flash-vaporized and exploded. For a full ten seconds the scene unfolded in silence, save for the screams and yells of the people in the restaurant. Glasses and plates began to rattle and fell as the first seismic vibrations made their way up the building. Then the shockwave hit, an overpowering roar overlaid on a deep rumble that seemed to grab Gloria’s guts and shake them in her torso.
“We’ve got to get out of here! Mom, come on, let’s go!” Her son had grabbed her shoulders and was trying to pull her up.
“Lawrence. Lawrence! Look at that crowd.” Lunchtime was the busiest period for the Coach Insignia and now it seemed that nearly everyone was trying to jam themselves through the doors at once. Some of the staff were shouting, gesturing, trying to control the flow but without much success.
“You watch the news, you know what happened in England.' Gloria was shouting hoarsely, to be heard over the din. 'That lava will flow downhill, straight towards us. I’ll never get out in time, not with my arthritis.”
Her son just stood there, stunned. “We can’t leave you…”
“Of course you can! You have to save your kids! Now move!” Gloria shoved his arms away.
Lawrence Hurst’s face was full of anguish, but his mother’s reasoning was indisputable. In the distance he could see the lava already beginning to flow down the trench the freeway sat in, heading for the river – and downtown. He hugged her tightly. “Goodbye mom.” Then he was gone, trying to force a path through the crowd for his family, his wife dragging their screaming children behind them. Gloria turned back to the window, tears streaming down her face. The tears were not for herself; oh, fear was welling up inside her, and frankly she hoped the building would collapse before the fire got to her. The tears though, they were for her city, which had suffered so much and struggled so hard to rebuild, only to have its heart burnt out by a war that nobody could even have imagined just a few months ago.
GM-Cadillac Hamtramck Assembly Plant, Detroit
It had been a hell of a job to get the plant converted over in two months flat, as much for training the workers as the retooling. Jake suspected that the Army already had a plan for the switch ready before the Message, because once the word was given the work started almost immediately – and went on 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, UAW be damned. Somehow they’d pulled it off and now the triple-one sevens were rolling off the line. Production was already up to ten units a day and still increasing. His section was responsible for wiring and accessory fit and they’d had some pretty horrible QC issues while the new workers were broken in. Jake O’Reilly’s temper was legendary at the plant, but truly he didn’t mind the hours or the problems; it was worth it to see his people so energized and the factory back at full capacity. The triple-one seven wasn’t as tough as a Bradley, but it was a huge step up from a Humvee and a hell of a lot easier to build than the Stryker. If the Army kept kicking Baldrick butt (armies even – couldn’t forget the Ruskies and the Brits, Jake thought), then they’d be a lot of escort and patrol missions coming up, and the ‘hell-model’ Guardian was the ideal tool for that job.
The attack came without warning; the factory floor was too noisy to hear the gunfire outside, and the management were still arguing on the phones when the portal opened. Tons of molten rock crashed through the roof, spraying onto sections of the line below. Sizable sections of the plant were destroyed within the first ten seconds, and fires began spreading immediately through the remainder. Shockwaves battered the staff as shrapnel zinged through the air, combining with the heaving ground to leave many workers in a state of shell-shock. After Sheffield everyone had been told that this might happen, the most pessimistic staff had even expected it, but nothing could prepare them for the reality of having a volcano appear in the sky nearby. Jake’s first thought was to get his people out. His second thought was to save as many vehicles as he could. His third thought was that these goals combined nicely.
“Listen, all of you…” It was useless, the roar was overpowering. Fortunately since the new workers had been put on the line Jake had been keeping a megaphone close at hand. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d used it to stop some butterfingered technician about to burn out a wiring harness; now he cranked the volume to the max and used it to save their lives.
“LISTEN, ALL OF YOU. TAKE ANY VEHICLE THAT CAN DRIVE AND GET CLEAR. THERE ARE PLENTY IN THE TESTING AREA. IT’S YOUR BEST HOPE FOR SURVIVING THE ROCKS AND THE SMOKE.”
The burning rocks seemed to have stopped coming for now, and Jake used the respite to herd his team into the nearly completed vehicles. The power had
gone out, throwing the factory floor into a hazy twilight filled with screams, shouts and running forms. “TODD’S TRAPPED, YOU THREE, PULL HIM OUT OF THERE. RICK, IT JUST NEEDS FUEL, GET SOME DAMN DIESEL AND DRIVE HER OUT.”
The Guardians were roaring to life and starting to move, knocking equipment aside as they sought any open path out of the chaos. Jake looked around – all of his staff seemed to have gone save a few huddled in a still unfuelled M1117. The smoke was already too thick to see the other sections…
The brief respite ended as a fresh wave of flying lava crashed into the plant. Jake fell to his knees, dazed by the impact of a trolley propelled by the blast. His eyes were swimming and his throat burned with the heat and the toxic smoke. He couldn’t see the Guardian… he hadn’t heard it leave, but he couldn’t see it… he struggled to regain his feet but the shaking, cracking floor seemed to defeat his efforts.
A hand gripped his wrist and pulled him up. It was Todd, and Jake had never been so grateful to see the spiky-haired brat. “She’s fueled up boss, let’s go.” Jake was half-dragged, half-clambered through the door of the Guardian. The cabin was filled with injured workers, and someone was already in the driver’s seat, because no sooner was he on board than the engine roared to life and the armored car pulled away. Flames licked at the windows as the vehicle sped through the factory, crashing through the wreckage of jigs and component bins as it made for the doors. Then they were clear, rolling across the huge parking lot, surrounded by a mass of other vehicles trying to escape the destruction. Lava continued to rain down, destroying some of the cars even as they watched, but luck smiled on their Guardian and they were soon out of range.
Jake leaned forward to address the driver. “Get us up to the Davison intersection. The VDF are bound to set up a checkpoint there, we can drop off our wounded and refuel. They’re going to need all the help they can get.”
White House Situation Room, Washington D.C.
“Sir, it’s Detroit. City’s been hit hard, the attack started just a few minutes ago.”
“Let’s hear it John. In a hundred words or less, please.”
