Invader: Book Seven in the Enhanced Series Page 4

  Lady Orlando, Adryan…they’ve just become a dying breed around here.

  The rest of our company are soldiers. Kira, Freya, Rycard, me. The other hybrids who seem to make up Lady Orlando’s personal guard. There are a few others too, leaving only Astor behind to recover from his wounds.

  Apparently, he looks set to lose that right arm of his. His days as a sniper might well be done.

  The journey back to the city is led by Kira. The concoction of her powers makes her an unbelievable asset, capable of some truly wondrous feats that, even to someone like me, are quite something.

  As we journey through the tunnel just off across the fields behind the church, the very same one Zander and I escaped through when I last left the city a few days ago, she stops occasionally and rests her hands to the cold rock floor.

  She can feel, hear, smell, and see it all. Shutting her eyes, a map of the world around her is created, complete with beating hearts and stamping feet and the whistling of the wind that gives shape to the buildings and streets.

  From here in the darkness, she knows just who and what are where, all around us. And to top it all off, she’s a Dasher too, capable of displacing and disappearing like a fading bolt of lightning.

  It’s no wonder, really, why she’s been able to sneak around the streets of Outer Haven with such proficiency and without detection, given her remarkable skillset.

  Creeping through the tunnels, we rush as fast as we can in the company we’re in. Lady Orlando, in particular, requires help as she battles over the uneven terrain, her sight given life by the night vision goggles that cover her eyes.

  It’s certainly an interesting look for her, what with the protective body armour she’s wearing, and the dark grey cloak on top. At a glance you might mistake her for a Stalker, albeit a rather immobile and small one…

  The sound of war appears to have quietened as we go. According to the latest reports that came in just before we left, some of the City Guards are standing down and holing up around the city, while the Con-Cops continue to spread east.

  The thinking on that front, aside from being a good place to defend, is that the food production factories are all there. With the water treatment plant for Outer Haven already destroyed, it looks as though the Con-Cops have been either ordered or automatically programmed to take possession of all food production facilities in the east, as if they’re expecting a long, drawn-out war of attrition.

  Cromwell, whether dead or not, has several cards to play. We may have sabotaged his entire operation, but that won’t stop him. It’s hardwired into him to complete his task, and if he’s denied that, perhaps he’ll turn to what so many others do when deprived of what they so desire: revenge.

  The tunnel lasts for a few miles until, with midnight passing, we emerge up onto the streets in the depths of the northern quarter. Quiet and quick as we can, and with all of our hybrids dialling up their senses and scouting ahead, we slip through the night as the carnage of the ongoing war becomes apparent.

  Death.

  I smell it before I see it.

  My Hawk-eyes, such a benefit at times, become a burden. They pick out the dead faces and the mangled bodies. Even in the dark, they see the thick pools of blood and the spare limbs that litter the devastated streets.

  It’ll be worse for any Sniffers among us. Kira, and a couple of others, are forced to endure the stench as the streets, strewn with day or two old corpses, become a fetid open-air morgue.

  We pass one of the old tunnels of the Nameless, a once-secret place hidden in an old, disused tenement block. At least, that’s what it was. Now, it’s a pile of rubble and flesh and bones, dozens, perhaps hundreds of men lying dead across the sprawling site that became such a crucial battleground as Cromwell’s men sought a pathway to the underlands.

  Con-Cops and City Guards and even Stalkers pepper the dirt, along with our own men made apparent by their attire. I see Disposables too, equally easy to spot for the clothing they wear, drawn into the fight after so many years of hiding in the dark shadows, or simply caught in the crossfire as they cowered and fled.

  We move on, working south, encountering no resistance at all as the city goes mute. The loss of the High Tower appears to have sucked the sound from the streets, an eerie quiet lingering in the misty, dusty air as we press on, speeding towards our gathered forces.

  As we near, Kira holds her hand up at the front, a signal to stop. As one, we stiffen and lift our weapons. It’s a false alarm. From the shadows, a whistling sounds, barely audible to me but, to Kira, very distinct in its rhythm and pattern.

  She relaxes, and watching from the recess of a broken wall, I see a soldier shoot out into view. He exchanges a few words with Kira, before she turns and waves us back out.

  “One of my scouts,” she tells us. “They’re all watching the streets for us. The paths around here are clear, and the army isn’t far.”

  She’s right, and within another ten minutes, with the knowledge that we have eyes watching all possible routes along our path, we find ourselves approaching a significant gathering that looks similar in size and scale to that which ventured forth to the mines only a couple of days ago.

  This lot, though, are all soldiers with varying degrees of experience. Drawn from the various battles around the city, they’ve come here for the final surge, all of them dirty and bloodied and covered in grit.

  Some have minor wounds; once white bandages, now turned red, wrap around arms and legs and across foreheads. Others look wounded in a different way, mental scars of what they’ve seen having been cut right through their psyches, and showing through their once bright eyes, now turned permanently dark.

  They’re all gathered in the old market here in district 2 of the northern quarter, the Conveyor Line sitting unused and dormant nearby and the gate to Inner Haven just about visible ahead.

  All entrances to the square are being watched, troops of soldiers tasked with securing each way in and out. And up on the buildings above and around us, Hawks sit watching, and Sniffers sit sniffing, and Bats sit listening for all those who might come to spoil the party.

  The operation is slick and well ordered. Several commanders come forward and explain the situation to us, and all eyes turn to Lady Orlando, hidden in her protective armour and dark camouflage, set to finally return to the place she grew up.

  She moves towards the centre of the market, and the people gravitate towards her. She removes the night-vision goggles from her face and shows off those ancient lines and wrinkles, and those grey eyes that glint like unbreakable steel.

  I expect her to make some sort of speech, to call out from her little lungs across the square, to galvanise the men and women of the Nameless as they look upon her. But she doesn’t. Her mere presence here, stepping foot away from the outerlands and back into the city for the first time in so long, is all she needs.

  Quietly, she walks through the throng instead, flanked by her hybrids who will never leave her side. I’m one of them, walking a pace or two behind her, mesmerised by the sight of so many gritty eyes and firm jaws, ready to march upon the city and complete this remarkable revolution.

  And what’s most remarkable of all is the lack of opposition. No calls come from above to signal an incoming force. No voices crackle on communicators, telling of another assembly amassing elsewhere, seen by our other scouts across the city. No one, it seems, expected this.

  And no one is able to stop it.

  Now, all we need is the final word from our covert team to make our move. For Beckett and Marler, and my dear brother to slice their way through the poor City Guards still tasked with guarding the way in.

  I spare a thought for Magnus, the giant Brute who I befriended on my early jaunts through the western gate to Inner Haven. Oh, how innocent those days were, when I was courting Adryan and learning about the machinations of the city. When I was working towards my mission of assassinating the big bad wolf up in his lair.

  At first, I’d rallied against the
terrible idea of murdering a man, even one capable of such things as Cromwell. Now, I stand here a killer of many, a girl who’ll witness the death of thousands more and call it a ‘necessary evil’.

  I know I’ve changed, and I suspect I’ve got further to go. The longer this war goes on, the more of my soul will be chipped away. In the end, perhaps I’ll end up little more than the emotionless Savants I so pity, the poor men and women who now lie dead in their droves at the very core of this beacon in the darkness.

  I do hope, though, that Magnus is alive. And Titus, his brother, too, who once saved my life in the southern outerlands as I tried to sneak back into the city following my little trip down the river.

  I wonder what this war has made of them. I wonder if they’ve taken up arms, under orders from their superiors, to join the fight. I wonder if they’re in Inner Haven, about to face this horde around me, or if they were, in fact, assigned to protect the High Tower, and now lie among the dead at its base.

  I wonder a great many things as my mind starts to wander, and a ripple of energy begins to spread through the crowd.

  I’m snapped back into focus, my fingers gripping my pulse rifle tight, as if expecting some sudden attack from one of the many ways into this square.

  And then, the word reaches my ears, pouring from the buildings above as the Hawks call from their high nests.

  The gate is opening.

  It’s time to march.

  Inner Haven is about to be ours.

  6

  Crossing the threshold to Inner Haven feels like a watershed moment for me. Sticking close to Lady Orlando, now surrounded by not twenty, but several hundred guards and soldiers, I assume the same is very much true for her.

  To the old Savant, the old wife of Artemis Cromwell, this has been decades in the making. For me, well, it’s been only a week or so since I was tossed into that van and ferried towards to REEF to await my impending reconditioning.

  But I never expected to return here, and certainly not amongst such a force. I’m a failed assassin, turned invader, marching along with hundreds more who feel the need for vengeance in the depths of their bones. It’s the sort of collective desire for change that clambers over the most seemingly insurmountable odds.

  Certainly, I could never have dreamt up this particular image if I slept for a thousand years.

  At the gate, our covert team join us. I smile through a steely glare at Zander, who, along with Beckett, quickly takes up command of the many units at their disposal.

  They spread forward in a formation of defence as we approach the outer spiral, that main road that coils its way around Inner Haven and right to its core, and my eyes stare up to the dull grey streets and identical buildings that line the perimeter of this inner sanctum of the city.

  The difference, when I used to go from the western quarter to Inner Haven, was always so stark. From the vibrant colours and bustling streets to the cold, lifeless order of this world that seems to run on tracks.

  Now, the disparity between the worlds is even more stark, here on the outer spirals of the main road at least. Having worked through the devastation and carnage all over the north, to step in here and see the streets, just as pristine as always, is a shocking reminder that this beacon of ours, this city, is far from fair.

  The only show of something out of order is the sight of a few bodies to the left and right of the gateway. Their size makes it clear that they’re Brutes, easily dispatched by our strike team, their enormous frames providing little more than a larger target at which to shoot.

  And shoot our men did. They took no mercy here. I cast my eyes over them, hoping not to see Magnus or his big brother Titus, but am unable to see through their visors or get a clear view of their faces.

  Then my eyes lift as our forward troops advance, making safe the routes ahead so that they can be travelled by our leader. I look to the windows above us, to the many apartments here lived in by the lower ranked residents of the Enhanced, and see frightened faces peeking down from windows in fear that we harbour malevolent intentions.

  They can’t be blamed for that. Only hours ago, they saw the High Tower topple. It’s only natural that they look upon us as some invasion force, rather than the emancipators we are.

  As we begin to work inward, going down a specific route already determined to be safest by our analysts, the ringing of weapons begins to sound. In my rear position alongside Lady Orlando, I see the fire of blue too, suggesting that there are City Guards still patrolling the area.

  Amid the blue, a single red light flares, and though I briefly wonder if it’s from the rifle of a Stalker, I quickly realise it’s actually from Beckett’s. The bright energy rounds come and go sporadically, and the chattering of regular firearms shout into the night as well.

  But it’s little resistance, and nothing that we can’t handle. And the further towards the centre we go, the more I realise that Inner Haven has been abandoned, just as the underlands were, and that the pockets of resistance are nothing more than sentries posted to keep a watch on the streets, just like ours did in the tunnels.

  Before too long, we’re swarming through towards the core, our glorious coup complete. My heart judders a little harder as we turn the final corner and all eyes spread down the main street ahead, to the huge, slightly raised platform upon which the High Tower used to stand.

  It does so still, yet its form has changed. What was a truly magnificent building, reaching forth to the heavens, has been reduced to a twisted, mangled carcass of a once great structure, still burning at its base and steaming with spiralling swirls of smoke.

  Even from here, hundreds of metres back, the rubble begins, the roads here no longer pristine and clean but littered with the detritus that clattered down from above. A mist hangs in the air, one of grey and brown dust and not green poison, and everywhere I see people, normal civilians, cowering in shock as we march onwards.

  They’re here to mourn, to witness the terror, dragged from their homes even at this late hour. By the colour of their clothes, their ranks and positions are quickly identified. Many wear the blue of Outer Haven, and many the darker shades of grey to show they’re regular Enhanced.

  Only a few of the lighter greys remain, the blank eyes of Savants staring, quite unable to work out just what to do now that their home, their place of work, has been destroyed.

  Most lived there. Those that didn’t, and who lived in the surrounding apartment blocks, probably worked there. The timing of the attack, before the workday had fully concluded, must have been selected carefully, just to make sure that as many Savants as possible were caught in the trap.

  I don’t like the thought, and so dismiss it.

  This wasn’t about killing all these normal, innocent Savants. It was only about taking out the top brass. That’s what I tell myself, that’s what I make myself believe. Because I must.

  The residents of the city disperse at our arrival, rushing back off home. I see their eyes and know that they’re lost, leaderless, the reality of the day yet to sink in.

  On we go, the rubble growing thicker as we advance. Various units begin working towards specific targets, checking for traps and hidden enemies. I look to the streets I know so well, to the Council of Matrimony and Compton’s Hall beside it, to the main HQ of the City Guard a little further on, to the various places that have played a part in my journey here.

  Now, they look different. All the surrounding buildings are covered in dust and black soot. Those closer to the High Tower have been caught in the carnage, chunks ripped out from the shrapnel flung as the tower fell, pillars toppled, the once solid ground shattered and cracked open.

  But it isn’t the fate of the buildings that strike at me, that stab at my heart as we venture on. No, it’s the human loss that renders me, and so many others, unable to speak.

  The protective convoy around Lady Orlando – those not required to check the buildings and make the place safe – stagger onwards as they scan the field of death before us
. Bodies appear through cracks in the debris. They appear on the side of the road, unable to escape the streets as the building came down. They appear everywhere, those of not only men and women, but children too, bringing the stark reality of what we’ve done into the light.

  I can’t look at them. I just can’t. I avert my eyes and look anywhere else I can. Others seem to do the same, and as we work down the right of the street, heading for the City Guard HQ, a smattering of gunfire offers distraction.

  Eyes lift to the noise, but it doesn’t last long. Soon enough, our soldiers are swarming through the building, clearing it out, checking every room for any lingering City Guard defending his patch.

  There appear to be so few left. And before too long, our men are stepping out of the building once more, and word is coming to us that the HQ is ours.

  It looks like it’ll be here where we’ll take up our position. As we enter into the main hallway, orders are given for the rest of the inner city to be checked, units sent out to sweep the streets and set up defensive posts around the gates and walls.

  Hawks and Sniffers and Bats will be deployed, tasked with watching our new borders for those who might seek to take them back. Those with experience of caring for the Nameless will now have their hands full with many more.

  From those who still live here; the many thousands of citizens of this place, to the tens of thousands across Outer Haven, an olive branch will need to be extended, an offer of support at this terrible time.

  I wonder whether the hardest part lies ahead. Destroying a building, taking up arms and firing at those who fire upon you…that’s the easy bit. But managing this mess, trying to reform a city so devastated by loss, that’s the true task that awaits.

  But then, it won’t be as easy as that either. We’ve wandered in almost untouched. That must have been partially by design, not only by our shock and awe attack that no one saw coming.