“Can you gather anything?” he asked Gerry, pausing to let those two overtake them. “Is your com working?”
“Just ops and tracking, ser,” Gerry said. “They aren’t saying, except there’s an emergency channel, and our group’s not authorized on it while we’re detached, ser. Sera’s security, sera’s security is saying just stay–”
Then a familiar young voice said, over the general address: “This is Ariane Emory, in ReseuneSec Admin, Defenses have brought down a device on the grounds. There’s no significant damage to Reseune facilities, just a hole in the ground where it hit. Please stay in the tunnels until an all‑clear, but it looks as if we’re all right for the moment. Section doors will now open, but they may close again if there should be another alarm, so be alert. Upper doors will remain shut for a while yet, so you can’t get back home yet anyway. Don’t cross a section line once the lights start blinking, observe the drills and remember, everybody stop moving if the lights flash red. We’ll provide further information as we get it. No one is to go outside except authorized agents at the moment. Thank you.”
Everybody broke out in conversation at once, voices with an undertone of alarm, frustration, and some relief.
“Let’s get home,” Justin said, and they weren’t the only ones. A waft of cooler air came through, that was the opening of the section doors that would let them leave the concourse. There began to be a general drift in the crowd, mostly toward the right hand tunnel.
Their own way lay left, and it was thinner traffic over there, a little faster progress. They lost no time clearing the concourse, and entering the cross‑corridor that would take them over to the Wing One tunnels.
Much less traffic once they were going that direction, which was to be expected, so much of Wing One being under construction, but once they got to the Wing One concourse, there were faces Justin didn’t immediately recognize, and that was entirely surreal; people standing around in the generally dim light the tunnels afforded–two Justin recognized from news reports as guests in the wing, both standing near the stairs, talking with, of all people, his father and Paul.
He could hardly ignore it. “Jordan,” Justin said, as they joined the group in passing. “Councillors.” A nod to Councillor deFranco, Councillor Chavez.
“My son Justin Warrick,” Jordan introduced him. “And Grant ALX.”
“Sera. Ser.” Justin set down the briefcase and offered a hand in courtesy. Grant did the same. “An honor.”
“I’d say it’s a pleasure,” deFranco said, “except for the circumstances.”
“Khalid, damn him.” Chavez said. “Taking this little business up a notch. Probably aiming at the airport. Maybe at the media people. Or us. This is getting damned serious.”
“A crazy universe,” Jordan said, and put a hand on Justin’s shoulder, just a little unfriendly pressure of the fingers that said he was, at the moment, as welcome as the plague. “Here we are expecting the rest of the Council, and Vladislaw Khalid casts an early vote. I don’t think it’s going to win him friends.”
“I’ve got to get back to Alpha Wing,” Justin said.
“You aren’t going anywhere until they open the upstairs doors,” Jordan said.
“I’ve got a responsibility next door. And twenty kilos of records to stow. I’ll at least get through to the tunnel.”
“My talented son,” Jordan said, and let him go.
He went. He picked up his briefcase, gathered up Grant and Mark and Gerry without a word and went on into the nook that separated Alpha Wing. “Try the key,” he asked Grant, not even looking back, and to his vast relief it did work, and let them through, out of Jordan’s vicinity.
It let them through at least as far as the guard station and two others of Mark’s and Gerry’s unit.
“Can I possibly get upstairs?” he asked.
“Keycard will actually override, ser,” one said, “but it’s advised you stay below. We don’t know that that’s the last that will come in. Best to go into the safety tunnel, ser. Anyone you’re looking for is probably there.”
Nothing sensible to do, then, but go aside, down the ramp to the deeper fortification, where, in fact, everyone else had gone. There was a bank of chairs, a galley an auxiliary command post, quite a few of Ari’s staff out and about. Maddy Strassen, Tommy and Mika–they were there. Wes and Marco were busy at the command post…
“We’re all right,” Justin said to Mark and Gerry, and walked into the command post alcove to set down the heavy briefcase. “Wes, Marco: these belong to Ari.”
“Thank you, ser,” Wes said.
“What have we got out there?”
Monitors were active. There was a large one above the console. Wes moved a hand, and that one went live.
It didn’t make sense for a moment…a floodlit area in the dark, beside a white strip that appeared to be part of a road. A lot of twisted metal, lit against the night.
“That’s the airport road,” Grant murmured.
Then the scale made sense, the twisted metal–a small plane, maybe; but large enough to make a hell of a hole. It was surreal, the crater and that wreckage beside the main road, right near the streetlight–it was tilted; outraged bots were scurrying along the perimeter, never coming closer. A handful of hazard‑suited figures were out there, in the shadows.
That it hadn’t hit any building when it had come down had been, Justin thought, their supreme good luck.
That crater was–dammit–right near the hospital.
“What is it?” he asked. “What was it?”
“Missile,” Wes said, and Marco, “Seems to be out of Svetlansk. There’s a Defense base up there.”
“God,” he said. “They’re crazy.”
And then he thought that Mark and Gerry might have had training that enabled them to accept explosions as part of the environment, but that Grant certainly hadn’t. Justin took hold of Grant’s arm. “Are you all right with this?” he asked.
“I’m not sure I ever quite expected things falling on the grounds,” Grant said in his best attempt at levity. “I think I’m doing all right. It’s like being shot at, isn’t it?”
“I think it’s a little worse than that,” he said. It wasworse, for everybody. “Come on. Leave the briefcases here. Mark, Gerry, you’re on your own.”
He walked with Grant just outside the alcove, and ran into Maddy. “Any news?” Maddy asked.
“Not much, except it may be a missile,” he said quietly “Is there coffee?”
“In the galley. Staff will get it. Sandwiches if you want them.”
“Thanks,” he said. His stomach didn’t want food. But a drink of something hot was more attractive. He and Grant walked on toward the galley–didn’t even get close, before one of Ari’s staff–Del, it was–presented them a choice of juices and sweet rolls.
Juice, he decided. Grant took one, too, and they went and had a seat at the galley tables, which had been let down from the wall. There was a news monitor nearby, people talking into the camera, a low, steady sound.
“I think they wanted to take a tower down,” he said, “just like upriver. They wanted to scare us.”
“Well, they’ve certainly done that,” Grant said over a sip of juice. “What are the chances of another one, I wonder?”
“I don’t know,” he said, which was the truth.
“Reseune defenses will get it,” a young voice said, and Tommy Carnath arrived with his sister, settling near them, likewise with juice. “If they come near the towers and they’re not aircraft, they’ll knock them down.”
Not saying what they’ll fall on, Justin thought unhappily, but, considering Grant, he kept that observation to himself.
“Attention.”The vid changed abruptly. Ari was suddenly on camera, not with the news, but somewhere else, somewhere office‑like. “We’ve identified the object as an I‑82 air to ground missile, serial number 38298, which did detonate conventional explosives. It came from the military base at Svetlansk. It fell in the green space between the airport and the warehouses, and it’s no longer a threat. We have the following statement: