Juggernaut

She flipped latches on the missile case. The disassembled Hellfire. She took the solid-fuel rocket motor from its foam bed. A grey cylinder with fins, a batch-plate and NO LIFT stencil. She hurled it across the carriage. The rear section of the missile clattered and came to rest beside Gaunt’s body. It began to smoke and cook.

Lucy ran from the carriage.

She jumped the coupling to the rear platform of the locomotive. Darkness lit by flickering flames. Stonework and concrete buttresses blurred past.

She lay face-down on steel deck plate, and seized the release lever of the carriage coupling. She gripped it and wrenched with all her strength. Rust-shriek. The lever snapped up, the knuckle-coupling unclenched and the carriage released. Pneumatic brake hose ruptured and whipped compressed air. A loop of power cable pulled taut, sparked, and broke.

Lucy stood on the rear platform of the locomotive. She watched the blazing carriage decelerate and recede. Tunnel walls lit by flickering flame-light. Mahogany coachwork consumed by fire.

Lucy hurried to reach the cab and shelter from the coming blast.

The Western Hills. High crags and rubble. Bleak and barren, like the surface of Mars.

Twin colossi flanked the rail tunnel entrance. Gargantuan Akkadian kings carved at the dawn of humanity. Austere, blank-eyed sentinels staring out across the desert.

The dull thud of detonation. A jet of flame from the tunnel mouth. The locomotive burst from the portal riding a wave of fire, like it was tearing out of hell.

The engine charged headlong into the desert. The scorched and scoured juggernaut jetted black diesel fumes. Bodywork burned carbon black. Windows blown out. Nose lamp shattered. Access doors buckled and ripped away.

The locomotive ploughed through dunes, tore down a track that stretched across desolate terrain and merged with rippling heat-haze at the distant horizon.

Amanda sat slumped in the engineer’s chair. She gazed out the smashed windshield at high sun and open desert. She drowsed, nodding out, pale and sick.

Lucy put a hand on her shoulder.

‘You okay?’

‘The sun is getting high,’ said Amanda. ‘No water. We’re going to get cooked in here.’

‘We’ll find some shade.’

‘How long will it take to cross this fucking desert?’

‘At this speed? Ten or twelve hours, if the fuel holds out.’

‘Christ.’

‘We’ll make it, babe. We’ll make it.’

Cleansweep

IBN Sina Hospital, Baghdad

Lucy lay in her hospital bed. She struggled to stay conscious. Her mind was fogged by Amytal.

Street noise from an open window.

The crackle and squeak of bio-suit rubber as Colonel Drew loaded a hypodermic gun.

‘Are you going to kill me?’ she murmured.

‘Taking care of loose ends,’ he said, voice muffled by his face plate. ‘It’s nothing personal.’

Lucy let her arm droop over the side of the mattress. She snagged the wrist strap of her Rolex on the metal bed-frame and discreetly released the clasp. She shook the metal bracelet down her hand and gripped it like a knuckle-duster.

Drew leant over her.

‘Try to relax. It will be quick. It won’t hurt.’

He picked up her right arm. He positioned the needle, ready to prick skin.

Lucy punched his faceplate with an armoured fist. Lexan cracked. His nose broke against the visor. He spritzed the safety glass with blood and spit.

She rolled off the bed and pinned Drew to the tiled floor. She sat on his chest. She could see herself reflected in the crack visor. A wide-eyed crazy woman.

She pulled off his hood. Another blow to the head. The diamond bezel of her Rolex cut open his cheek. He coughed blood and spat a tooth.

She shook off the wristwatch and threw it aside. She snatched up the hypodermic gun.

‘Please,’ croaked Drew.

‘Fuck you.’

Lucy punched the needle into his right eye and pulled the trigger. Gas-cartridge hiss. His eye inflated and burst, spilling clear liquid.

He convulsed. He arched his back. Blood leaked from his nose and ears.

Lucy stood back. Drew gripped her bare ankle. She jerked her leg free.

She watched him thrash and slowly die.

She patted him down, slid her hands over the heavy rubber in case he had a holstered pistol beneath his suit.

Nothing.

Her clothes lay in a heap in the corner. She bent and picked them up. Amytal head rush. She swayed like a drunk.

The clothes had been cut from her body, reduced to rags.

Her prairie coat was still in one piece. She threw it over her shoulder.

She stepped into the corridor, bare feet padding silently on floor tiles. She stumbled down the passageway, leaning against the wall for support.

Amanda lay in her hospital bed, drowsed with morphine.

Koell stood at a side table, loading a hypodermic gun. She listened to the creak of his Tyvek hazmat suit. She was lulled by the electric hum of his backpack respirator. Air sucked through charcoal virus filters.

‘Don’t kill me,’ she murmured.

He stood over the bed. He lifted her arm and positioned the hypo gun.

‘I read your MI profile. Spoilt little rich girl. Trust-fund junkie. All that promise. All that potential. The person you could have been.’