‘Show me,’ Loi instructed the G8Turing. The bubble display switched to a simple map of Salt Lake City, centred around Gilbert Bay. Sensor imagery was patchy; the Olyix had eliminated all the low-orbit spysats, but plenty of Alpha Defence’s stealthed high-orbit systems were functional and provided a decent resolution. Visually, most of Utah was smothered under a Jovian-strength storm-swirl of cloud, with Salt Lake City a turgid violet glow fluorescing at the centre. Lightning forks snapped outwards constantly from the cirrocumulus peak, discharging into the clutter of secondary tornadoes that inundated the lakes and mountains around the city.
Eldlund flinched at the sight. ‘Damn, I’m glad we’re not down there.’
‘We will be soon enough,’ Loi reminded him. He flipped the display to features overlay and zoomed in on the shoreline of Gilbert Bay at the southern end of the Great Salt Lake. It didn’t exist any more. Even in ordinary times, the massive body of water suffered heavy evaporation every summer, shrinking it down. Now with four Deliverance ships bombarding the city shield with intense energy beams, the surrounding super-energized atmosphere had boiled it empty in the first seven months of the siege.
Twenty-five intruder creatures had travelled in from the north, slithering across the warm granules of the lakebed. Now the three leaders were making their way over the buckled ribbon of asphalt that used to be I-80, with the rest following. Loi activated a direct link and looked through an intruder’s eyes. The land was a jumble of fractured slabs of interstate and desiccated scrub. The image was so badly hazed that he thought the link was faulty before realizing the air was actually clotted with grains of dirt scoured from the land by hurricane-force winds. Low clouds scudded fast overhead, their darkness the shade of wounded flesh. He knew the Oquirrh mountains began to rise up on the other side of the I-80, with Kessler Peak in the distance. But even with the intruder’s enhanced senses, he couldn’t see more than twenty metres.
‘Let’s spread them out,’ Eldlund said, ‘then march them forwards. Those mountains are tough in ordinary conditions, never mind wind like this.’
‘Okay.’ In his mind, Loi could see them as chess pieces advancing across the board – not that the squares were visible, nor the opponent. Somewhere in the maelstrom ahead, the Olyix transport ships were perched along the top of the Oquirrh range, waiting to pounce as soon as the shield fell. Loi directed the intruder forwards, plotting a course to load into its inertial navigation routines. It began to move faster, sliding up onto jagged ridges of exposed rock that marked the start of the foothills. Intermittent streamers of mist streaked down from the slopes above, flowing around it as if it was being sprayed by water cannon, then vanishing as fast as they came. The local air temperature had risen over twenty degrees Celsius.
‘I hope our suits are going to be good enough,’ Loi muttered.
‘Lim has done a great job. We’re going to be pioneers; they were about the first things human-built initiators ever produced. How cool is that?’
‘Scalding, if you must know.’
‘You’re such a miserabilist. Concentrate on good news. There must be some.’
‘Right. Actually, we might have found a route in to Nikolaj.’
‘Yeah? What?’
‘Kohei has tracked down some lowlife criminal that they’re hoping to manipulate. If he’s played right, they’ll be able to shut down the Olyix sabotage operation in London without the Salvation’s onemind knowing we can read its thoughts. We need that. London’s shield is close to breaking.’
‘As close as Salt Lake City?’
‘I think London is worse – just a few hours left now. Mum’s really worried about it. Dad’s still there on the ground, doing his good-guy charity thing.’
‘I feel for her.’
Loi concentrated hard on the route up into the mountains.
London
10th December 2206
Over a century ago, the front of the railway arch had been boarded up with a wall of corrugated iron, which left it dark and surprisingly cool inside. The thick brickwork even reduced the constant noise emitted by the stressed shield curving high overhead. Ollie’s torch threw a bright beam across the rough floor as he walked in, carrying the hefty water cooler bottle. Twenty paces in, past the protective line of active-shot rat traps, the cocoons of his brother Bik and their grandmother lay on the ground. He and Lolo had moved them into the archway a couple of weeks after Blitz2 began. There was nowhere else. If he’d taken them to one of the official green zone refuges that were being set up, the security agencies and police would have spotted him. So he made it his duty to look after them, keeping them clean and safe.
He shone his torch down on the horrible mass of transformed flesh that used to be their torsos. It was difficult now to tell them apart. They were both about the same size, and the myriad features that used to make their faces so individual had slowly sunk away, just like their eyes and ears and mouth, rendering the skulls as blank masks of flesh. Roots like strings of white wax had wormed their way out of each torso, sinking their tendrils into the raw soil in search of basic nutrients.
There was a small table between the two cocoons, with a nearly empty water cooler bottle on it. Ollie shoved it aside and put the new one down in its place, slightly overhanging the edge. Once he was sure it was aligned properly, he turned on the tap at the bottom. Water dripped slowly onto the ground, where the roots had grown into a small crater shape. He’d checked on solnet how to care for a cocoon, like so many who couldn’t part from a loved family
