Assault or Attrition (15 page)

Beckett:
Let’s move on to the nature of this message;
Valeriya’s impassioned speech where she states, in no uncertain
terms, that her brother demands vengeance. She stops short of
naming names, but anyone can connect the dots and see a clear line
pointing towards one man. She’s insinuating that Russia’s Son is
demanding the execution of Matthew Moxon.

O’Neill:
Look, I’m not going to condone vigilante justice.
I’m not a lawyer, and I’m not in the position to make these types
of calls when it comes to what constitutes breaking the law...but
if this Moxon character turns up dead, maybe it
will
lead to
a better society, for all I know.

Richards:
Are you quite mad? What you just said
specifically
condones vigilante justice.

O’Neill:
I’m no fan of Russia, or communism, or anything
that goes on outside of America – but Valeriya Taktarov says a new
era of peace and prosperity will arrive if Moxon is rubbed out, and
that Russia’s Son will be the one to deliver it. What’s the
worst
thing that can happen if people listen to her?

Richards:
The ‘worst thing’ would be to lend credence to
these outlandish claims, giving the credulous tacit approval to
take matters into their own hands. Allowing this type of
theological bullying to go unchecked would also be first step
towards a world where trials and executions take place in a court
of popular opinion, much as they were in the dark ages, and not in
a modern-day court of law where facts and evidence are a
prerequisite.

O’Neill:
We’ll just have to agree to disagree.

Richards:
Do you even know what you’re disagreeing
with?

Beckett:
Well, that’s all the time we have. I’d like to
thank Agnes Richards and William O’Neill for joining me here on
this special evening edition of The Daily Express.

Don’t forget
to visit our website, where you can pick up Doctor Richards’s
latest book ‘A Trip Through the Cosmos’, as well as O’Neill’s new
book, ‘America’s Heartland: The Birthplace of Capitalism, The
Second Amendment and Christianity’.

By morning
the number of campsites had swollen from two to twenty.
Aircraft continued to drop protesters at our fortress perimeter,
along with weapons and additional supplies. And all-terrain
vehicles arrived by the dozen; endless convoys wearing a path
through the snow. As the hours passed, the numbers increased. By
noon, the view from outside my bedroom window looked like a
political rally. At a glance I counted just under a thousand
people, with more huddled inside tents and vehicles to keep warm.
Around the campsites, some were planting flags in the ground. Not
surprisingly, it was the solid red banner with a gold hammer and
sickle in solidarity with Russia’s Son.

Valeriya’s
iTube video had enlisted more recruits than I anticipated. She was
so convincing, in fact, that religious leaders from around the
world were taking her claims all too seriously. The Vatican’s
official statement (which was more or less an endorsement of her
mission statement to have me murdered) is what likely pushed many
believers over the edge, inspiring them to make the pilgrimage to
Fortress 23 in droves. It wasn’t long before we were completely
surrounded.

There were no
signs of the authorities coming to disperse the crowd, but
thankfully, there was a bit of good news that came through a
simulcast: a weather report was calling for extreme conditions.
When the
Canadian
government calls the amount of snow coming
your way ‘extreme’, you had better believe that they’re serious.
The snow fell – and fell, and fell, and fell. It was three feet
deep before nightfall. Temperatures were well below zero, with
arctic wind chills dropping to minus fifty degrees Celsius. I
spotted an ATV in one of the campsites attempt to move; engine
wheezing, headlights flickering – it was immobilized. Being
stationary for too long, the vehicle’s tires had become completely
iced to the ground.

The weather was
helpful in slowing the influx of reinforcements as well. Since the
heavy snowfall began not a single new convoy had arrived by land,
and in these conditions, air travel was out of the question.
Visibility was non-existent, and the winds were far too violent,
even for my state-of-the-art aircraft.

The weather was
not enough of a deterrent to keep the soldiers from continuing
their attempts to break into the fortress, though; groups of them
were attacking the base of the structure with various weapons and
forms of construction equipment. Everything from gunfire to
handheld drills were being used in an attempt to find a weak spot.
Late into the night, video feeds from our external cams showed
bright orange sparks flashing in the darkness as hailstorms of
bullets bounced harmlessly off the armored walls, and drill bits
snapped off trying to penetrate the surface.

At the moment,
the intruders were causing no more than cosmetic damage, and I
wasn’t overly concerned with dents and chipped paint. What
was
a concern was the possibility of the Red Army finding
that elusive weak point – some flaw in the design that would grant
them access to the fortress, creating a doorway that would allow a
tidal wave of angry dissidents to storm through like the finale of
a zombie movie. Our weapons, and even Valentina’s hydrokinesis,
would be inconsequential in the face of those numbers. We’d be
overwhelmed in a matter of minutes by the sheer weight of
attackers. I’d most likely be dragged away, subjected to public
torture before my execution, and I didn’t even want to consider
what would happen to my friends and the remaining staff. Of course
this was an irrational fear; the likelihood of them breaching
security was a wild, billion-to-one long shot...although when
you’re surrounded by over a thousand angry militants who want to
sacrifice you to their god, it’s sometimes difficult to separate
the rational fears from the irrational ones.

As time passed
Valeriya’s intentions were becoming clear. Her plan was unfolding,
and the actions she
didn’t
take were making her motives all
the more transparent. Her followers were attempting to access the
fortress using only rudimentary tools; drills, jackhammers, gunfire
– with no effort being made to gain entry using explosives. Any
attempt to blast their way in would likely yield no results, but
she had no way of knowing that for certain. For all she knew a
well-paced grenade or round from a bazooka would open up a gaping
hole, giving her mob an all-access pass to our seemingly
impregnable fortress. The gunshots, the drilling – this was
mindless busywork. Her people were putting on a show, making it
look like they were making a serious attempt to gain access to the
fortress, all while some larger, more insidious plot unfolded. Were
they just awaiting additional followers, giving the masses more
time to arm themselves and join the cause? Was she using some of
the Kashstarter funds to hire superhumans in an attempt to blast
their way in? Or was there something else she was waiting on? I
couldn’t be sure.

What seemed
obvious was the fact that Valeriya – and her Red Army – almost
certainly wanted me alive. At least to begin with. Acting without
her direct leadership, the movement was a loosely-assembled group
of angry militants, scouring the world for anyone who looked
remotely like me. They shot first and confirmed ID’s later. Now,
there was more focus. The implosion in New York City seemed more
calculated than ever: the human suicide bomb went off in the spot
where it would draw the most attention and elicit the greatest
response. Attention was now completely focused on the riots that
had spread across America, and had continued to propagate
throughout major cities in Canada and Mexico.

Had Valeriya
just wanted me vaporized, it would have made more sense to send her
jihadist right to my front porch here in Northern Alberta. He could
have torn off his shirt, gone supernova and taken out the entire
fortress, blinking it – and Matthew ‘The God Slayer’ Moxon –
completely out of existence. Simple and effective, but not nearly
enough of a statement. Whatever Valeriya Taktarov had in mind as
recompense for the loss of her only living relative, it was going
to be much more sadistic.

When I played
poker, Valeriya was what we referred to as a ‘sandbagger’: someone
who presented themselves as more passive and weak than they
actually were, luring their opposition into a false sense of
security. When the sharks at the table were feeling confident,
that’s when the sandbagger would strike. The sharks, overconfident
in their abilities, get harpooned the moment they let their guard
down; they go home broke, while the sandbagger walks away with the
house.

It was
comfortable to let Peyton, Brynja and the others believe that we
were up against no more than a group of poorly-armed idiots who had
no hope of achieving their goal. I knew better, and so did
Valentina.

My bodyguard
suggested that we prepare for a worst-case scenario, which meant
opening up The Vault. For the past three months, Valentina and I
failed to see eye-to-eye on a single issue, but she was always a
consummate professional. She’d helped me design weapons and body
armor using our 3D printer, and she suggested it was time to suit
up and prepare for what could be on the horizon. It was never too
soon to test equipment in case of an emergency situation, so we
agreed that the next day I’d take Peyton, Brynja and Chandler to
The Vault.

When morning
came I opened the blast shields that covered my bedroom window, and
a shaft of bright sunlight poured in as the steel retracted. The
clouds had parted and the snowfall had ceased, giving the Red Army
a temporary reprieve from the harsh conditions. New convoys were
already rumbling in through a well-worn path in the forest, and
their numbers had doubled. They were now chopping down trees and
clearing the surroundings, making room for additional camp sites. I
considered visiting the nurse to ask about anti-anxiety pills, but
we were already scheduled for our armor fitting – I could take care
of my panic attacks later.

Throwing on
jeans and a t-shirt I stepped into the hallway, nearly colliding
with Peyton as I finished pulling up my zipper. Our eyes met and
she smiled politely, but it was tight and forced, without the
warmth she usually radiated. We paused, staring at each other, as
if anticipating the other might say something. I opened my mouth
for a moment and closed it, unable to produce a word that would
fill the awkward silence. She smiled again, a little wider, and
twirled a loop of pink hair with her finger as she stared down at
her shoes.

I heard the
distinctive sound of boots clacking on the steel floors as Brynja
rounded the corner. “Did I miss something?” she asked. “What is
this, a staring contest?”

Peyton’s smile
quickly faded. She deliberately trailed her eyes from Brynja’s
newly printed footwear (heavy black leather with spikes protruding
from a steel toe) up to her low-slung jeans, to her tattered black
tank top (a barely-existent garment that revealed a generous amount
of cleavage, along with most of her midriff). Her lipstick and
eyeshadow matched her vivid blue locks, which were pulled into a
pair of braids that fell over her shoulders.

Standing next
to each other, their physical similarities were apparent – their
age, height and stature were nearly identical – but their styles
couldn’t have contrasted more if they’d tried. While Brynja was
loud and expressive in her attire, Peyton’s clothes were far
softer, and much more unassuming. Her loose-fitting grey sweater,
yoga pants and running shoes represented the bulk of her wardrobe.
She rarely required anything more formal; during her life in The
Fringe she spent the majority of her time working at Excelsior
Retro Comics, or in school studying to be a veterinarian. As she
continued to inspect Brynja’s outfit in the painful gulf of
silence, I interjected with a rapid, “C’mon guys, these suits
aren’t going to try themselves on,” and gestured for them to follow
me towards the floor’s central hub.

A few minutes
later we arrived at The Vault. It was directly adjacent to the
primary media room, and was identical in every way: an expansive,
snowflake-white living space without a single right angle to
disrupt the aesthetic. It was perfectly circular with four entrance
points, separated evenly like the quarter-hour notches on a clock.
However, instead of being furnished with plush leather couches and
low-hanging lamps, this room had a single design feature: a
cylindrical silver column that stretched from floor to ceiling. The
enormous tube that dominated the center of the room disappeared
into the floor with a touch of my thumbprint, revealing my own
private arsenal.

The armor
suits, and an impressive array of rifles, hung from what looked
like a massive circular department store rack, with hooks used to
display the hardware.

“Holy shit,”
Brynja whispered. “Is all of this for us?”

“Yup.” I
rotated the rack along the top rail like hangars in a closet. I
browsed through the armor, shifting them aside one after the other.
“This is yours.”

Brynja unhooked
the shimmering black bodysuit from the rack and held it in front of
her, as if to approximate her size.

I circled
around the far side of the rack and retrieved Peyton’s suit. When I
handed it to her she crinkled her nose at the design. “These look a
little tight. Are they supposed to stop bullets, or are they for
show, like Brynja’s costumes?”

“Hey
buttercup,” Brynja shouted from the opposite side of the rack,
hidden behind the rows of armor. “I can still hear you.”