Just my luck.
He turned to head back down the stairs, his back slightly hunched over, clutching the hand rail of the stairway. As he took another step, a voice screamed out over the commotion. “He’s got a gun!”
Paulo turned and scanned the crowd desperately, in time to see the businessman he had been sitting next to point a machine gun at the crowd. Deafening gun shots echoed off the concrete tunnel walls. Instinctively he dropped to the concrete, the stale taste of dust finding its way into his open mouth.
He watched as the trolley doors opened and several more men dressed like the businessman jumped out into the crowd, their machine guns raised. The CRK soldier opened fire immediately, the bullets tearing through two State workers who fell, thick pools of blood oozing out of their warm bodies.
“Oh my God,” Paulo whispered, frozen in fear. It was really happening. This wasn’t just a story in The Lunia Post. This was real.
Paulo gripped the railing tightly and watched the CRK soldier run towards the four terrorists. He fired haphazardly, his bullets cutting down innocent civilians in his path. The terrorists, who were most likely part of the TDU, fired back, their bullets ricocheting off the CRK soldier’s armor with little effect.
The scene was straight out of a nightmare, one Paulo had seen so many times before in his dreams, and now he had a front row seat. He watched as the screaming civilians dove for cover. The terrorists were positioned behind the safety of stone pillars, firing desperately at the CRK soldier, who ducked behind a stone trash can, pieces of rock exploding from their incoming shots.
“Get down!” one of the terrorists screamed as he lobbed a grenade towards the CRK soldier. The small explosive rolled towards the trash can and came to a stop directly at the foot of the CRK soldier, who was too busy firing to notice it. Seconds later the device exploded, sending a cloud of orange flames and sparks through the air. The explosion rocked the tunnel and blew the CRK soldier in half, his torso landing several feet from a woman who lay screaming. The piercing noise of the explosion subsided as smoke began to fill the corridor.
Paulo sat stunned against the wall, a loud ringing echoing in his ears. He reached up and felt warm blood seeping from his face, but it did not faze him. His eyes remained glued to the scene, scanning the carnage. At least five civilians lay silently on the ground. Another 20 screamed in pain, clutching their bullet and shrapnel wounds. The rest of the civilians ran past Paulo as they tried to escape.
A man grabbed Paulo by the shoulders, his frightened eyes locking onto Paulo’s. “Let’s go, man, what are you doing?!” he screamed. He pulled on Paulo’s tan sweater, but Paulo ignored him, his eyes darting back to the scene. The man let go of his sweater, and took off running with the rest of the survivors.
Below the four terrorists had gone back into the train and were kneeling around a small box. Paulo knew immediately it was a bomb, but the reality of the situation still had not fully hit him. In fact, in an odd way it fascinated him. He strained to hear what the terrorists were saying through his injured ears.
In the distance the whine of CRK sirens rang out, and the ground began to shake with the sound of armored vehicles approaching the tunnel.
“We don’t have much time,” one of the terrorists yelled. He took out a knife and cut the wire of the bomb he was attaching to the center of the trolley.
“Okay, it’s armed!” He stood and patted his comrade on the shoulder. The other three terrorists rose as well. The one in the middle, the same one that Paulo had been sitting by earlier, brushed off his dusty black suit. He appeared to be limping.
“We do this and then make our escape. Nathar, you put the coordinates into the trolley’s computer, so when it leaves here it goes straight to the CRK headquarters. When you’re done, follow us down the tunnel. Ajax, you and Creo follow me back into the storm tunnels,” the leader said.
Paulo sat watching the four men as they began to move in all different directions. The injured leader, the one Creo referred to as Obi slowly made his way off the train. The dark man grabbed his arm and helped him jump down onto the tracks. Then they disappeared from sight, Ajax close behind them.
Paulo continued to sit against the staircase; he gripped the railing so hard his knuckles turned white. Something compelled him to stay and watch. For years he heard about the TDU terrorists, and now he was watching the feared men conduct their work right in front of him. Part of his shock was from fear, but part of it was also from curiosity and mere fascination. In a way, he was almost rooting for the terrorists.
He scanned the bodies of his fellow State workers below and stopped on the torso of the CRK soldier. The truth was, he felt a sense of relief it wasn’t him laying there in a pool of blood.
“Move, move, move!” screamed a dozen CRK soldiers. They ran past Paulo and into the carnage below. One of the soldiers stopped and glanced at Paulo. “Are you all right, sir?” he asked, a semi-concerned tone in his voice. Paulo simply nodded, and looked back down at the trolley as it began to move down the tunnel.
“Don’t let that trolley leave!” the lead CRK soldier shouted. He opened fire on the metal skin of the trolley. Windows exploded as the bullets tore through the thin metal and fragile glass, but it was too late. Nathar had already plotted the train’s course and put it on autopilot, and by now, he and his comrades were long gone down the dark tunnel. The soldiers continued to fire as the train slipped away from range.
Finally, shocked into motion, Paulo crawled up the stairway towards the light above. Step by step, he pulled himself higher, more faceless CRK soldiers and medical workers racing past him.
For Paulo, everything became silent. Thoughts of the carnage escaped his mind as he fixated on the bright white light of the street poles above. Nothing else seemed to matter to him. The TDU, Knights, and injured colleagues were now just an afterthought. All he cared about was reaching the light. It was captivating and beckoned him with its dazzling glow.
With a final push he reached the last step and crawled onto the stone ground above. He rolled on to his back, staring into the light, his chest heaving with every labored breathe.
Life is strange. So much death, and for what?
He laughed as his vision blurred and stars danced across his cloudy line of sight. The bright glare of the light became nothing but an illusion of swirling white. It was seconds later, just before an explosion from the tunnels swallowed him, that he answered his own question.
The death, misery, and suffering were all derived from the same thing; Biomass, and fossil fuels before it. As the inferno raced up the stairway, he cracked a smile. His eyes locked onto the Biomass-fed light pole before he was incinerated.
Time: 8:03 a.m. January 30, 2071
Location: Sector of Governmental Services. Lunia, Tisaia
Spurious was bored. He was sitting in his cubicle staring at Archie, when he felt the blast. It shook the entire building, and knocked his plastic clock off the wall. He immediately grabbed Archie’s bowl, making sure it did not fall and break.
Spurious peeked out of his cubicle to examine the deafening roar, but all he could see were State workers running down the hall towards the receptionist desk, where a radio was transmitting something over the airwaves.
He quickly got up from his desk and followed his co-workers down the hall. He already knew something was terribly wrong. He thought about what Leo had told him a few days before, and deep down he knew his life had already changed. Part of this caused a great sense of excitement deep in his gut, but there was also the anxiety of change he always feared.