Uroboros Saga Book 2 Read online

  “Officer, what’s going on?” Phelps asked angrily.

  “Please remain calm, sir” the law dog responded, her oddly husky voice tinged with the accent of someone trained to speak by a computer.

  “I’m trying, but we’re all freezing and the buildings appear to be defunded with all occupants evicted. How is that possible?”

  “You appear to be someone employed in the financial industry, I would ask you the same,” the law dog responded.

  “I don’t like your tone,” Phelps responded.

  The law dog stepped conspicuously into Phelps’ personal bubble so that he could feel her breath on his face. She paused for a moment, looming over the top of him. Phelps swallowed and straightened his tie as he averted his eyes from her gaze.

  “Local precincts have been defunded. I came down from the hills because I haven’t been served notice of termination yet. Technically, I don’t have to be here, but I’m not the sort to just watch idly while you people freeze to death,” the law dog responded, her sharp teeth appearing from behind her black lips.

  “How did you get here so fast?” Phelps asked. “The building was defunded only minutes ago.”

  “Whatever is going on hit poorer outlying areas first and has been spreading toward wealthier parts of town since very early morning,” the law dog replied.

  Phelps looked down at the ground somewhat ashamed.

  “How can we help?” Walter asked.

  “Start pulling the tops off of trash bins and drag them to sheltered areas. I’ll use the flares I have to start barrel fires. They should burn for 24 hours. Hopefully emergency response will arrive before the sun goes down,” the law dog growled.

  “What’s your name, Officer?” Marjorie asked.

  “Abbey,” the law dog replied.

  It took them a half hour to prep the trash bins along the roads of the financial district as Abbey went around dropping the few flares she had into them. Phelps and his two coworkers tried in vain to contact their homes, and then went down to check and see if the metro was running. The tunnels were quiet, illuminated by emergency lighting only.

  As they walked back toward their office they could see people trying in vain to access their personal vehicles. Each had a small red light blinking on the dash indicating that the vehicle was to be collected for non-payment by a repossession agent. Some of the cars had sustained damage either from frustration or desperation to recover items from the interior. Ironically, on the walk back, they saw at least one recovery agent standing by his defunded tow truck awaiting collection as well.

  The financial district was a strange sight. Brokers and accountants clustered around the barrel fires as Abbey patrolled the length of the street to maintain a tenuous degree of order as tempers flared and frustration mounted. The cold didn’t help as some people had left the office without their coats thinking the whole affair was merely a drill.

  “Marjorie, was there any indication that the global trade market was in some sort of trouble?” Phelps ventured.

  “Not when I checked my retirement package yesterday morning. Everything appeared normal.”

  “Feh, I never look at my package,” Walter replied as cheerfully as he could muster.

  “With that gut, I’m not surprised,” Phelps quipped.

  Marjorie pinched Phelps, harder than the last time.

  “Ow!” Phelps exclaimed as he rubbed his arm. “How is it you found the exact place you pinched me previously?”

  “They made me head of the department for just that reason. I’m good at corralling you morons. You all need to quit picking on Walter, he might be your boss someday,” Marjorie said somewhat disgusted.

  “Really?” Walter asked, his eyes lighting up.

  “No, but it was the most terrifying threat I could make,” Marjorie replied with a wink.

  “No respect for the short guy. Okay, let’s see if the law dog has heard anything,” Walter said, his cheerful demeanor fading as he self-consciously looked down at his protruding stomach.

  Abbey put her radio away as the trio approached, smiling as professionally as she could.

  “Officer, have you heard anything? Emergency response on their way?” Marjorie asked, rubbing her arms for warmth.

  “No. Civil communications went down ten minutes ago. Just previous to that there were reports of looting and unrest in the commercial districts. People were trying to break into shopping centers that had been defunded. Last I heard, members of my own Nordic Patrol were trying to rescue homeowners who had been trapped in the ventilation systems of their own homes. They’d been locked out and tried to get back inside. I don’t know what’s going on, but it is city wide,” Abbey said, her long pointed ears standing erect as if trying to detect some faraway sound.

  “Well, if they can’t contact you, they can’t terminate you either,” Walter said cheerfully.

  “Shut up, Walter,” Marjorie and Phelps said in unison.

  Abbey looked upward into the sky, her razor sharp teeth protruding slightly as her lips parted. She closed her eyes for a moment and raised her hand as if to ask for silence. The three were quiet for only that moment, trying to hear whatever it was Abbey could hear. At last, Abbey opened her cold blue eyes, her semi-professional smile vanishing as she started her ATV.

  “What is it?” Walter asked, knowing that Metasapients had enhanced senses.

  “I can hear people screaming in terror, faintly. It doesn’t make sense, but it sounds like it’s coming from above us. Maybe people trapped in the upper levels of the buildings? I can’t imagine what would elicit such a response from them...” Abbey whispered, her rigid mind trying to lock onto what the sounds meant.

  “Dear God,” Walter cried.

  “What?” Phelps said, shaking Walter by the shoulders.

  “Commercial transports, with thousands of people aboard... what if the airlines were defunded in mid-flight?!” Walter exclaimed.

  “There are safeguards...” Marjorie began, just as a commercial transport broke the clouds above them.

  They all gazed up at the transport, awestruck. Its hulking metallic mass was devoid of illumination, the usual array of safety lighting completely dark, as were every tiny passenger window and the cockpit. It seemed to fall in slow motion, gliding down at a dangerously steep angle. A collective sound of exclamation went up from the crowd as people pointed. The sound was quickly replaced by cries of panic and screams as the thrum of footfalls filled the streets.

  “Run,” Abbey growled, gunning the engine of her four-wheeler.

  Phelps broke into a panicked run as the crowd surged around him. He lost sight of Marjorie and Walter as they hesitated and got knocked down by the stampede of brokers, analysts, and finance consultants. Wingtips and high heels trampled anything and anyone unfortunate enough to get in their way as the commercial transport plummeted toward the Anderson Central Credit Bureau building.

  The transport hit the reinforced structure with such force that it flattened everyone down below, knocking them prone. As it broke apart, the internal electronics within the transport sparked, igniting the aviation propellant that had once resided within now shattered fuel tanks. Fire, tons of sundered metal, and hundreds of burning corpses rained down on the crowd below. Driven by fear, those uninjured in the crowd regained their feet and resumed trampling the dead and injured in their ardent desire to flee the scene.

  Abbey, standing atop her ATV, barked at the crowd in vain trying to restore order as cries for help ringing in her ears were silenced by thudding foot falls. She leapt into the crowd swinging her tactical baton in a wide arc, her powerful arms battering the cubical slaves to the ground. She strode forward, using her weight to her advantage. She reached down and picked up an injured child. She had a temporary wrist band that betrayed her as a recent resident of one of the corpora
te daycare centers nearby.

  A couple of men from the crowd, indignant from being knocked down, stood up and lunged at Abbey. She yielded to her training, drawing and discharging her sidearm in one fluid movement. Each of the men took a round, center of mass, and fell backward. The crowd around her recoiled in horror at first, then responded with fury. She was just a Metasapient, her life wasn’t worth even a tenth of a human life by societal standards. She was just property by most established laws.

  Abbey didn’t care anymore; her job was to restore order. She leveled her sidearm menacingly at the crowd and let loose a low growl, her powerful maternal instinct making her momentarily irrational as the child she cradled in her arm struggled to breath with broken ribs. The crowd began to hurl bottles and burning debris at Abbey as she retreated to her ATV. She pistol whipped a man wearing an expensive suit off the back of her ride, even as he struggled to figure out how to operate it.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but you aren’t authorized to operate this vehicle. Law enforcement only,” Abbey barked, as the suit made a hasty retreat.

  Phelps struggled to push his way through the crowd to where he last saw Marjorie and Walter. As he got close he watched passively as Abbey shot and killed two men lunging at her.

  “Idiots,” he grunted as he looked about the ground for his coworkers.

  Walter was more or less where he’d left him, cradling Marjorie in his arms as she bled out in the snow. She’d been trampled, puncture wounds from designer shoes oozed blood across her abdomen and she struggled to breathe. Walter himself was bloodied and bruised, but his girth seemed to insulate him somewhat from the reckless assault of the panicked crowd.

  “Officer Abbey!” Phelps shouted.

  The law dog turned, her fur flecked with blood, eyes full of unbridled fury.

  “Please, my boss is hurt. Please, help us,” he pleaded.

  Abbey’s strong instinct to protect the humans overcame her rage, and she turned her ATV around and rode over. She panted heavily as she handed the small girl to Phelps to hold while she knelt down next to Marjorie. Walter sat back slightly so Abbey could sniff Marjorie’s wounds.

  “Her digestive tract is punctured, and so is her stomach by the scent of the blood rising up. Unless you can get her to a hospital, it might be more merciful to let her bleed out than suffer the pain of her body poisoning itself,” Abbey growled, turning a murderous gaze toward the crowd.

  “No. We have to do something,” Walter cried, tears freezing to his face.

  Phelps turned and looked back toward the skyline as two more commercial transports began making a slow descent to the ground just to their side of the hills. The girl in his arms gasped for air, her small jacket wholly insufficient to keep her warm. Phelps took off his own light jacket and wrapped it around the unconscious little girl.

  “What could have happened to cause this?” Walter muttered as he tried in vain to make Marjorie more comfortable.

  “Global market failure outside of legislative safeguards,” Phelps responded grimly.

  Abbey grabbed the shotgun from its locking point on her ATV and thumbed several shells into the ammo tube. She ran a round into the chamber and another shell into the tube for good measure. Phelps looked on nervously, Abbey’s ears twitching in different directions as she took in the sounds and probably the smells around her.

  “People are already in full panic-mode. A woman was just beat to death two blocks away for her sack lunch,” Abbey growled.

  “Dear God,” Walter exclaimed.

  “What do you intend to do?” Phelps said, laying the small girl beside Marjorie inside her long coat.

  “I’m going to do my job. I’m going to try to keep the peace. Hopefully there are more Nordic Patrol officers already doing the same,” Abbey replied, putting her hand reflexively to the silver badge pinned to her tactical vest.

  Phelps looked out across the flaming wreckage and at the dozens of bodies lying in the street, and at the terrified people huddled around barrel fires and fading heating vents. His mind reeled, his sanity sitting at the precipice between rational thought and sheer terror. Everything around him was unreal and dreamlike.

  “Walter, find us a couple of coats. Pull them off corpses if you have to,” Phelps said, his voice calm.

  “What?” Walter mumbled, his gaze firmly fixed on the ground.

  “Abbey will need our help, even with a badge and a gun. She’ll need some humans to back her up. Most people don’t see her the way I do now,” Phelps explained.

  “And how is that exactly?” Abbey snarled.

  “As our best chance to survive this situation. You can’t do this alone, and if the rest of the Nordic Patrol has deserted their posts, I’d hesitate to think of what some of the anti-Metasapient bigots around here might try to do to you. Even you have to sleep,” Phelps replied, trying to make Marjorie and the little girl more comfortable.

  Abbey stood there for a moment in contemplation. Her rigid and inflexible mind began to throw off some of the shackles of her ingrained desire to conform and obey the training she had received. Technically, she wasn’t allowed to work beside humans, only take orders from them. However, her first order of business was to see to the protection of humanity, and if working with them would help her achieve that end, the other rules seemed frivolous.

  Walter came back over with a handful of coats, some were singed while others were bloody. They quietly divvied them up and layered them on as best as they could. Walter looked down at Marjorie and the little girl as shock began to set in. They spasmed and shivered as their bodies began to shut down from their injuries, blood loss, and the cold. He couldn’t help but think they might be the lucky ones.

  “What do we do now?” Walter asked.

  Phelps turned to Abbey.

  “We... we should find a place to act as our base. Somewhere old and unfortified that isn’t subject to foreclosure lockdown. There will be nowhere in the Helsinki core that is like that. If we can’t find a place like that, we might have to go below the city to the tunnels and ask the Drones for sanctuary,” Abbey said, thinking out loud.

  “Drones? You mean those genetically engineered sub-humans actually exist?” Walter stammered.

  “I suppose I’m a sub-human too?” Abbey said looking at Walter disdainfully.

  “Gosh, no,” Walter replied somewhat diminished.

  “They are real, but after the project that produced them was defunded some years back, they remained underground tapping into the water and power of the cities above. As long as they don’t cause trouble, the Central Global Government has allowed them to persist. Most of the colonies continued to perform their function in the tunnels and help maintain the city infrastructure, blissfully unaware their corporate masters had all but forgotten them,” Abbey replied, pulling her long white hair back into a ponytail.

  “How do you know all this?” Phelps asked.

  Abbey just stared at Phelps for a moment, making it clear his question wasn’t receiving an answer.

  “What if people try to force their way into the underground homes of the Drones? Surely, there are other people who are aware of them,” Phelps said, somewhat exasperated.

  “Anyone with civil service experience or employment with Helsinki Metro might have an inkling of their existence. There are dark zones in the underground grid you are instructed to avoid because Drones are sometimes dangerous and territorial. A few Type One Drones are active in Helsinki,” Abbey said, checking the fuel level of her ATV.

  “Dangerous? Type One?” Walter replied, wringing his hands in worry.

  “Type One Drones were created for hazardous environments, and military duty. Even Type Two law enforcement grade Metasapients, such as myself, have something to fear from Type One Drones. It is not just for their physical and sensory enhancements, but for the training t
hey receive in the manufacturing cells that birthed them,” Abbey remarked, doing little to throw salve on Walter’s fears.

  “Are they automatically hostile?” Phelps asked, suddenly curious.

  “No. Type One Drones have generally seen enough extra vehicular activity and off-world combat that they tend to avoid bloodshed. A few are flawed, and the aberrant ones are relentless killers whose only instinct is to fight. I haven’t heard of one in Helsinki, though,” Abbey said.

  “You sound like you’ve actually met a Type One,” Walter observed.

  Abbey started up her ATV and rode along slowly while Phelps and Walter followed. Walter turned and looked back over his shoulder at Marjorie and the small girl as they disappeared in the distance. It seemed heartless to leave them behind, but there was nothing they could do. Every hospital would likely be defunded, and each was likely fortified to meet the Central Global Government’s anti-insurgency standards to repel terrorist attacks. Once the doors closed, no one without a Central Global Government, or CGG alpha level clearance or higher would be getting inside.

  The streets beyond the financial district were peppered with debris. There were groups of people attempting to garner warmth from a fire or exhaust vent at the side of a building. There was also the occasional dead body. Most didn’t appear to be the result of falling commercial transports or stampeding crowds. They were the victims of random crimes of passion or desperation.

  Phelps periodically checked his mobile. The old auxiliary public network was clogged with desperate attempts by people to reach loved ones, offers to trade expensive luxury items for food or water, and pleas from people trapped inside defunded buildings and complexes. Worse, the messages came from all over Finland and the surrounding areas. Whatever was going on wasn’t just restricted to Helsinki.