Zero World (56 page)

As instructed he kept a wide circle around the tower, only tightening his turn once on the eastern side of the city. Suburbs made up the landscape below.

Skyler eased back on the thrust as individual buildings came into view. Motion began to manifest on the ground. Vehicles and then people. For a few seconds it looked normal, like any other city stirring to life with the sunrise.

The western shoreline slid past, off to the right. A smattering of boats were anchored some distance away from the jagged boulders that met the sea. Farther south, a huge messy flotilla crowded the bay. Thousands of boats that must have raced here ahead of the infection.
Fires burned on some of them. Skyler shook his head at the chaos and continued his circuit to the eastern part of Darwin, as instructed.

“Look at that,” Skadz said. “Below us.”

Through the glass footwell, Skyler saw nothing but the antlike movement of people. On this side of the city no rain fell at the moment, and they were out in droves. It took him a second to realize there was a strange abrupt end to the activity, right along the edge of the line of buildings. Hundreds of people were crowded along this invisible border.

As Skyler watched, a lone motorcycle rider raced toward this line. A few dozen people chased the bike, clearly diseased from the primal way they moved. The rider sailed through an alley, took a jump, and landed badly. Skyler winced as the person slid along the ground and tumbled.

“That Sheila might be like us,” Skadz observed. “Coming in from the outside.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Skyler said. He’d come across a few of the diseased that still seemed capable of intelligent behavior, to an extent, anyway. Riding a motorcycle seemed beyond that aptitude, but who knew for sure? Still, he found some hope in his co-pilot’s words.

The scene slid behind them as they entered the central part of the city.

“Holy shit,” Skadz whispered.

The streets approaching Nightcliff were packed with vehicles, but few were moving. Most were dark, some just burned-out shells. And people—
Jesus, the people
—were everywhere. Leaning in through broken windows, wrenching away wheels and body panels. They were clustered into gangs; some were visibly embroiled in combat with others or even themselves.

Shadowed forms rushed in and out of broken shop windows, arms full of anything they could carry, backs hunched over at a constant barrage from above. Objects of nearly every shape and size rained down, pelting those on the street below.

“What are they throwing from the windows?” Skyler asked, not really expecting an answer.

“Anything they can’t eat, burn, or trade,” Skadz replied.

Skyler considered that. “Driving away the refugees.”

“That, or just clearing space for ’em. I guess we better hope for that.”

They watched in silence as the area called Nightcliff drew near. Skyler could see the landing pad now, blissfully free of looters. The only people he saw within a few hundred meters of it were soldiers and police, many wearing riot gear. Checkpoints marked each intersection, at least the ones Skyler could see, in a rough circle around the Elevator complex. Farther out they became roadblocks. Some were made from portable barricades, others from vehicles stacked on top of each other by nearby loading cranes. A few were simply walls of armed and armored people, looking out instead of in, lit in haunting yellows and oranges by trash fires and the odd road flare.

“I’d call this a nightmare,” Skyler said, “but compared to Abu Dhabi…”

“Yeah.” Skadz shifted in his seat again. “Turf wars, looting, your basic hooligan shit. It’s like Birmingham after a right and proper football contest. I call that a welcome change, though I wouldn’t mind a little law and order the closer we get to that pad.”

Skyler focused on the landing site. The VTOL pads were four concrete disks, arranged in a curved layout around a massive fixed-base loading crane and flanked on either side by caged electrical junctions that no doubt provided capacitor spooling services. Broad, flat warehouses ringed the yard at a safe distance.

He guided the craft along what seemed like a natural path between buildings toward the landing area. Off to his left a sprawling mansion came into view. White and angular, the opulent villa looked wholly out of place next to all the service-oriented buildings.

“Wave to Neil,” Skadz said, imparting a mock cheer in his tone.

Skyler kept his hands at the controls.

His co-pilot smirked, the way only a street urchin could at such a
display of wealth amid so much ugliness. “Think the old goat is inside, trying to make sense of all this?”

Skyler shook his head. “I’d guess he’s up above, riding things out. I would be.”

The radio crackled. “
Dutch Cargo,
hold position there, please.”

With a slight yank, Skyler leveled the bulky aircraft out into a hover at fifty meters altitude. A high-pitched whine surged from the straining ultracapacitors, loud even against the howling thrust of air being pushed through the craft’s massive ducted fans. His eyes danced toward the cap level readout. Just 5 percent remaining; a hover would burn through that in ten minutes. His hands began to sweat, but he kept them firmly on the stick and throttle. “
Dutch Cargo,
holding. What’s the problem, Nightcliff?”

“Unidentified ground vehicle approaching,” came the reply. “As a precaution we advise you back off to five hundred meters and await further instructions.”

Skyler glanced over his shoulder at Skadz. “I don’t think we have the cap for it.”

“Tell them, mate, not me,” Skadz said.

“Nightcliff, we’re low on charge. A second approach would be—” The rapid blinking of muzzle flashes below killed the words in his mouth. Through the footwell window he could see the soldiers swarming toward the south end of the landing area, taking up positions along the main arterial road that approached from the southwest. Vehicles and barricades alike dotted the avenue. How a ground vehicle could “approach” through that mess Skyler had no idea.

Then he saw it, and understood.

Large steel plates had been welded to the front of the thing, forming a wedge. The tires were similarly hidden beneath improvised armor. Whatever the original truck had been, it was clearly powerfully built. As Skyler watched it knocked a streetcar aside like it was no more than a toy. Sparks flew from the plated nose of the thing as the guards’ barrage peppered the surface. The bullets did absolutely nothing.

“See that?” Skadz asked.

“Yes,” Skyler managed.

“They’re not going to stop it.”

The same thought had just flitted through Skyler’s mind. Whatever the driver’s intent…on a whim Skyler flipped the radio to the local police band. The cockpit filled with frantic chatter immediately.

“…Going for the base…”

“…AP ineffective. Repeat, piercing rounds ineffective.”

“Conserve ammo, there are civilians—”

“Everyone shut the fuck up!”

Skyler winced, despite himself. That last voice, though shrill, imparted a commander’s tone.

The voice went on. “This is Blackfield. We’ve got grenades ready here. They will not reach the Elevator tower under any circumstances. I don’t care if we all need to lie down in front of it. Rally on my position in case any malcontents get out of that thing when it pops.”

“Belay that,” a new voice said. “This is Chief Constable Braithwaite. If the intruder is packed with explosives and you set it off inside Nightcliff—”

“If we let it get close it will be ten times worse,” the one called Blackfield shot back.

“Find another way, that’s an order.”

Below, Skyler saw a trail of smoke suddenly lance between the line of guards and the oncoming truck. The grenade fell ten meters short, exploding in a brilliant flash of yellow. Shrapnel flew, leaving a thousand little smoke trails in the air.

“Goddammit, that was an order!” Braithwaite shouted through the speaker.

The truck lurched left. Not damaged, just a change of course. It veered ninety degrees and careened down a side street. From his vantage point Skyler could track the vehicle easily. He saw it turn again and barrel down a narrow alley between two warehouses. Then soldiers
were scrambling. More shouting came over the radio as chaos won out over order.

“Maybe we should back off,” Skadz said. “I don’t like this. Not one bit.”

The armored truck lurched again, sliding sideways into another street that faced in toward Nightcliff’s tower, behind where the guards had set up their final barricade. The vehicle surged forward then, building speed like an enraged bull now that its target, the base of the space elevator, lay directly ahead. There was nothing to block it. Skyler glanced at the soldiers, who were moving that way but far too slow, still unsure where the intruder had gone.

“Hold on to something,” Skyler said. He slammed the flight stick forward, tilting the craft’s nose nearly straight down. At the same instant he cut power to the engines, dropping the vehicle like a stone.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Skadz roared.

Skyler ignored him. He angled toward the speeding truck, turning to face it as his plane fell toward the ground. Somewhere in the cockpit a collision beacon started to chirp, high and scathingly loud.

“Bloody hell!” Skadz shouted again, gripping his armrests.

The armored truck careened on, oblivious to the aircraft about to meet it. At the last possible instant Skyler slammed the accelerator to pull and yanked back on the stick. The electric motors screamed to life. The whole cockpit shook with the force of it. Something cracked behind Skyler’s head. Skadz’s knees pressed hard into the seat from behind. Skyler winced, groaning against the sudden reversal of g-forces.

Somehow he managed to keep his eyes open just enough to watch through the footwell window. The driver of the truck hadn’t seen them. The vehicle did not slow or turn. It rolled straight into the sudden and massive flow of air being pushed by the aircraft’s huge vents. The vehicle’s nose lifted. Once the balance tipped it was all over. Heavy plates of armor did nothing against the sheer force of the airflow. The truck flipped upward, its rear sliding underneath from
sheer forward momentum. With a massive clang that rattled Skyler’s teeth the vehicle slammed down onto its roof and came to rest.

Skyler leveled out and allowed the craft to gain some altitude. Below, a man in a white robe crawled from the driver’s-side door, spilling himself out onto the asphalt and crawling away. He tried to get up, tried to run, and then he was shaking violently as little red splotches appeared across his white garment from shoulder to knee. The driver jerked and stumbled before falling flat on his back, dead.

The soldiers moved up and surrounded the truck. They shot into the passenger window a few times. As they flowed around to the back, Skyler lost them from view. He’d seen enough.

A few minutes later, ignoring the angry commands from the controller in the tower, Skyler set down on landing pad four and killed the engines. It took a force of will to release the flight stick, releasing his fingers one by one.

His co-pilot, quiet for the last few minutes, let out a long breath in the newly silent cockpit. “That was brilliant, mate. Mental, but brilliant.”

“I thought you’d be angry.”

“How do you figure that?”

With a shrug Skyler said, “Risking ourselves just to help these guys out.”

“Ah, well,” Skadz said, unbuckling his harness, “next time you put my ass on the line I’d prefer a little heads-up. As for these blokes, I don’t care about them at all, that’s a fact, but the Elevator? Worth the risk if it is really the only thing keeping the rest of us safe.”

With that he extricated himself from the bulky chair and headed aft. Skyler finished the shutdown sequence, content to lose himself in the familiar task. He could handle this process with his eyes closed, but right now shutting out the world didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

The space elevator had changed the world, but that had been twelve years ago. He’d been a kid, wide-eyed with dreams of aliens
and space travel. Adults wrestled with the implications of intelligent life beyond Earth, and even as he came of age he’d always been content to leave such matters to those wiser than himself. He’d just wanted to be a pilot, eventually maybe an astronaut.

Now everything had changed again. The boyish dreams that had guided his ambition were crushed along with everything else he ever knew. Everything save this cockpit, and the memories he carried of his brief military career. His family, his instructors, his friends and fellow soldiers…everyone he’d ever known, all dead. Or worse, transformed into a creature that was human only in shape.

He’d shot one of them in Abu Dhabi. Right between the eyes, from just two meters away. In the time it took the old man to fall to the ground Skyler had seen the change in his face. Perhaps it had just been an illusion, something projected from his own desperate hope, but he’d seen it. The return, in that crossing between life and death, of the human within.

Skyler had never shot anyone before this madness. He’d never done anything worse than punch a man in a drunken back-alley brawl over a skirt who wanted nothing to do with either of them. For the hundredth time in a week, Skyler wondered if he would have been able to pull the trigger on someone he knew.

Making sense of this world loomed beyond his mental capability. Better to leave solutions to the surviving power players and focus on what he could do. Let the great Neil Platz figure it all out. Offer to serve if the opportunity arose.

Voices drifted in from the cargo bay. Skadz and a few others. Skyler’s hand went to the harness buckle. He stopped himself, eased back in his chair, and flipped on the intercom.

“…the right thing to do,” Skadz was saying. “We made a snap decision. Sorry if anything was damaged, but from our vantage point—”

“Look, mate,” someone said, cutting him off, “you almost got a grenade up your backside. Next time you find yourself in the middle of a security operation you back off and stay the fuck out of it.” The
voice, a man with a strong Australian accent, spoke in a hushed tone.