Havoc (4 page)

We ditched our coats, tied bandanas across our faces to keep out the dust, and joined
a team clearing the smashed remains of the dining hall. CommSec—Communications Security
where I worked for Sub-commander
Levkova—had collapsed into it from the floor above.
There'd been no one in CommSec when the rockets landed but a whole shift from the
infirmary had been in the dining hall. It was so random—if you just happened to pull
the first night shift and you just happened to be hungry when you knocked off, then
you were in the dining hall when the upstairs floor came through the ceiling.

We edged forward in the light of two floodlamps, heaving aside rubble by hand, drawn
by the sounds those people made. Eight—that's how many we found. Five, we stretchered
out to treatment down the hill. The others were dead. They were two nurses and the
chatty receptionist who was always asking how you were and laughing about her kids
doing nutty things. Lanya closed their eyes and arranged their bodies carefully,
then sat with them until time came for them to go down the hill as well. I carried
on clearing rubble until the squad leader in charge called a halt. ‘Right, everyone!
We can't do more without the heavy lifting gear.'

I pulled off my bandana and wiped my face.

The guy said, ‘You're the City kid, right?'

I nodded. There was no point saying, ‘I am, but you know what—it's more complicated
than that.' People don't like complicated. Early on, I'd tried to explain but no
one was interested in explanations so then I'd tried to leave it at ‘Yeah, that's
me,' but they seemed to expect more than that, I don't know what more. I'd tried,
‘Yeah.
So?' but not for long. Now whenever anyone said that to me I nodded and waited,
because they'd usually made up their mind already. For the ones who wanted to pick
a fight, I'd perfected the ‘shrug and walk on', which usually worked, though it gave
me a great education in Terms of Abuse: Breken.

This guy looked at me and then nodded, clapped a hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Thanks.'
Which was good enough for me.

As the last body was stretchered away, Lanya followed the bearers, and I walked with
her. Out east, over the sea, the sky was starting to pale and a fresh breeze, cooler
now, drifted in. There was a stillness in Lanya that was maybe exhaustion but maybe
more than that. It reached me, standing beside her, and slowed me down.

She said, ‘I've never done that before. Not with people killed like that.'

A sharp whistle came from over by the gates and a voice called, ‘Food! Choose it
or lose it!' We queued at a water pump to wash off the soot and dirt, shocking ourselves
into wakefulness with the cold of it. Then we queued again at the remains of a bonfire,
where a team was cooking sausages in the coals and handing them out wrapped in thick-cut
bread. No one spoke much: we all stood near the fire and ate, realising how hungry
we were. There was billy tea too, black and bitter, but welcome for being hot and
chasing away the taste of smoke. Jeitan
arrived with reports from down the hill that
things were going okay, considering, and someone said, ‘Any bets on what Vega's thinking
right now?'

I thought to myself: Vega's thinking, ‘Where the hell is Nikolai Stais when I need
him?' My father was AWOL, that's how it seemed to me, and probably not only to me;
maybe he was playing politics over the river, but the game had changed and he needed
to be back here fast.

Jeitan said, ‘He's thinking: why now? Why destroy the bridges now?'

We all looked at him and he shrugged, carefully.

‘They've always needed the bridges,' he said. ‘And they've always needed us. Who
else will do their shit jobs for shit pay? How are they gonna organise us going over
there to work and back if they destroy the bridges?'

‘They taken down any others?' asked someone.

Jeitan shook his head. ‘Just us, so far. But the night's not over yet.'

CHAPTER 05

Commander Vega, Sub-commander Levkova and some senior staff arrived and the chat
died down while people made room. I went over to Levkova and asked, ‘How are you?
Are you okay?'

She gave me a curt nod, then on an afterthought, as though she realised that surviving
the night was probably worth more than that, she almost smiled. ‘I am, thank you,
Nik. You?'

‘Yes, thanks.'

Lanya appeared beside us. ‘Sub-commander? Something happened down by the bridge
that I think you should know about.' She nudged me. ‘Tell her.'

Levkova's eyebrows lifted and she gave me a steely stare. ‘It'll have to wait,' she
said. ‘You're wanted.'

Jeitan came over. ‘The commander wants comms up. We need to talk to people upriver.'

Easier said than done, but we scavenged functional bits and pieces from different
places and set up in one of the still-standing sleeping sheds. I spent an hour jury-rigging
the system into something operational: it would work as long as I hovered over it
and doctored it the whole time. I was trying to contact Curswall, the next township
upriver, when the screen flickered.

‘Incoming!' I called.

‘Ah!' said a voice from the screen. ‘There you are.'

‘Commander?' I said. ‘We've got audio.'

The feed stuttered. ‘Commander Vega? Are you there?'

Then we had visual, but it wasn't coming from upriver at all. It was coming from
across the river. A woman peered out of the screen. She had grey-streaked dark hair
pulled tightly back, a sharp pale face, bird-dark eyes and a tiny, tight mouth. Frieda
Kelleran, the woman who'd taken me, aged four, to the Tornmoor Academy after my mother
had been killed by Cityside security agents and my father thrown in the Marsh. She'd
been promoted for her efforts, and now she was a high-up for that same outfit—Director
of Security in fact.

The reception was blurred and crackling, and Frieda's voice, speaking Anglo, was
blaring one minute and indecipherable the next. But it wouldn't have mattered if
she'd been invisible and speaking ancient Croat—we'd received her message loud and
clear about seven hours
earlier. I glanced around. Not a muscle moved on any face.
They watched, impassive. Listened. Someone nudged me to translate so I murmured along
with her to a small group gathered close.

‘I don't have visual on you,' she said. ‘Perhaps your equipment is damaged. I'll
assume you can hear me.' She waved a hand towards us. ‘What do you think of our handiwork?
We haven't touched the township but those of you on the hill may have casualties.'

The guy standing next to me opened his mouth as though he was about to yell at her,
but Vega held up a hand for quiet and he subsided.

Frieda said, ‘What we've done tonight is a small thing—a shrug. See how you shake
when we shrug?' She leaned forward, her head filled the screen. She was so pale that
she kept disappearing into the static, except for her eyes, black beads in the white.
‘I have this to say. Listen carefully. We do not negotiate with extremists. We reject
your so-called ceasefire. As for what happens next…Now that I have your attention,
I could ask you where your One City friends are hiding, but I know what your answer
will be. We have reliable intelligence on that in any case, and we'll be acting on
it shortly. So we'll skip that step, shall we, and move right along.' She smiled
thinly. ‘To what, you ask. Patience, patience. You'll see. I have plans for Moldam.
But for now, it's been a long night so if you'll excuse me…' She nodded to someone
we couldn't see then
the screen went blank and the static died away.

A wave of swearing and muttering went through the room. Then someone called out,
‘Listen!' Everyone stopped, and we heard it, the hum—the high-pitched hum that makes
your teeth ache and your skin crawl. The hum that will kill you when it lands.

Vega yelled, ‘Take cover!' and we dived under the bunkbeds. The hum became a whine,
then a scream, then an almighty roar shook the building and the ground and us to
our bones.

What do you think about in those moments? If you're me your brain freezes: there's
no before or after, there's just fear, which isn't even a thought, it's an adrenalin
rush that leaves your body ringing, like the bridge in the aftershock of its destruction.
The thought comes after, once you realise you're still whole and alive, and it's
this: they hate us. And in that moment, you hate them right back.

When it stopped everyone lay still and waited. And waited. Frieda would have been
profoundly pleased—she was in control even of our silences. At last, we rolled out
from under the bunks, coughing in the dust, picked ourselves up to stand on shaking
legs and went outside to look at the damage. The rocket had struck down the hill,
destroying part of an old wall that ran alongside a graveyard, and leaving a smoking
crater and a far flung scatter of pulverised bricks.

Lanya said, ‘Oh, no! How dare they!' and marched off towards it, but somebody grabbed
her arm before I could and started to argue with her about unexploded ordnance.

Vega spoke to Jeitan who nodded and walked into the middle of the crowd. He shouted,
‘Listen up! We're moving out! Moving out! Now! That means everyone! Walk if you can.
We'll find trucks if you can't.'

Then he beckoned to me. ‘Nik, where's Levkova?'

I looked around and realised that the sub-commander hadn't been in the bunkhouse
with the rest of us. I went round the handful of other buildings that were standing,
putting my head into each one. They all looked like they'd been picked up by a toddler
in a tantrum and slammed down again; clothes, bedding and broken glass lay everywhere.
I called out, but got no answer. No point hunting about inside any of them—she wasn't
going to be hiding under a bed. And she wasn't going to be wandering through the
rubble of the main building for old time's sake either—you could never accuse Levkova
of being sentimental.

Where then? Where would you go if you weren't the type to hide under a bed in the
face of a rocket attack, if you were the type to stand your ground and stare it down?

I headed to the lookout near the top of the compound, a knobbly bit of bare hillside
above the graveyard. It had a bench, where you could sit and ponder the dead and
the
city and the connection between them, and, beside it, an ancient perspex-covered
stand with a profile of the view from there. I could see the early sunlight bouncing
off the stand, and then I saw Levkova sitting ramrod straight on the bench, with
one wrinkled hand clasping her walking stick. She was scowling across the river.
A blustery wind brought the smell of smoke and the noises of the rescue effort from
the shantytown below, but she didn't move. A layer of dust and flakes of ash had
settled on her black uniform and grey hair and in the lines of her face, making her
look like a stone statue. Except for her eyes—they were alive and fierce. I thought
of Frieda and Levkova glaring at each other across the river, but then I thought
of Frieda's casual nod that had sent that last rocket screaming our way. I could
imagine that after she'd given that nod and a smile to her 2IC, she'd poured herself
a drink and strolled out onto a balcony with her army buddies to watch their handiwork
unfold. I couldn't imagine Levkova doing that.

Levkova noticed me. ‘Nik,' she said. She got stiffly to her feet.

‘Ma'am, the commander's moving us out. All of us.'

She nodded. ‘Tell him I'm on my way. Oh, wait a minute. You wanted to tell me something
about the bridge.'

‘Yeah. Sure. Later. We need to leave.'

Her eyes narrowed, but she said, ‘All right. Go and
tell him I'm coming.'

I hesitated and got the full force of her glare.

‘Go! I'll be there shortly. I don't need young things hovering over me.'

I went.

Down by Shed 14 the exodus was underway. Vega was sitting on an upturned crate. He
wouldn't go until everyone was safely out. He must have decided that if he sat down
he could direct proceedings for a bit longer, but the way he braced himself—hands
on knees, hardly moving—you could tell he was mainly focused on staying upright.
I told him Levkova was on her way, got a nod and was told to get off the hill. I
went looking for Lanya but I couldn't see her in the crowd.

A woman in a squad uniform came pounding through the gates, struggling against the
tide of people going the other way. She saluted Vega. ‘Sir, a Cityside convoy has
crossed the bridge at Curswall—' she checked her watch ‘—half an hour ago. Heading
this way. About thirty of them.'

Vega glanced at Levkova, who'd just arrived. ‘Thirty,' he said. ‘They coming in?'

‘Don't seem to be, sir. Looks like they've stopped on the Curswall boundary road.'
Vega rubbed a hand over his face, smearing dirt, dust and sweat. He stared at his
palm and wiped it on his jacket. I wanted badly for my father to be standing beside
him, shouldering some of
the command and not off over the river having, for all I
knew, a nice break from all this dust and destruction and counting bodies and trying
to defend the place with practically no resources at all.

Still no Lanya. I asked Jeitan, but he shook his head and turned back to allocating
people to trucks and loading up whatever remained of the HQ—equipment, documents—that
couldn't be left behind for an enemy to find. I was pushing through the crowd, searching,
when a truck came through the gate and a man jumped out, saluted Vega and pointed
downriver towards Port.

‘Sir! Army trucks from the city! They've crossed the bridge at Gull's Fort and halted
on the boundary road. Setting up checkpoints, looks like.'