Five minutes later I was coming down the far side of the overpass on the way to Laverton when I pulled up in a hurry. The traffic lights were flashing yellow and there were a pair of police cruisers parked in the middle of the intersection with scorpion strips laid out to prevent people going around them. I rolled up to the one in my lane and rolled down my window.
“Good evening officer, is there a problem?” I asked, peering past the light being shined in my eyes.
“Road’s closed. Return to your home.” The order was barked in an entirely unfriendly way.
“I have to get to Laverton,” I responded, keeping my tone light. I did not want to end up in cuffs right now. “My wife’s over there and in trouble.”
The officer huffed and climbed out of his vehicle. He was human, but only just. Think Robbie Coltrane in a tac kit. I was concerned someone had shaved a bear and stuffed it into a stab vest, given it a badge and stolen its porridge. I kept the smile plastered on my face as he approached.
“Licence,” he demanded.
I reached across myself and grabbed my phone from the centre console. When I turned back to the window the copper had one hand on his taser and the other on his shoulder mounted radio mic. I raised both hands and slowly put the thumb of my left hand in my mouth, gently bit down and pulled. The glove came away and I showed him my stump. When this mollified the big man enough to take his hand off the weapon I spat out the glove. “Easy there mate, I’m unarmed.”
He took his hand off the mic as well. “Don’t be a smartass. Licence.”
I flipped open the case of my phone to show the clear pocket that held the little plastic card he had demanded so gruffly. When he made no move to inspect it I held the phone out further, well clear of the car. Only then did he bend over and read the name and address on the front.
“Right.” He moved his hand to the mic again and muttered what I assume were my details to whoever was sitting in the cruiser still. A minute later the radio gave two pips and he looked back at the cruiser’s driver’s seat askance. The radio pipped twice more so he shrugged and stepped back. “Go. Be back tomorrow or we come looking.” The cruiser reversed, revealing a gap in the scorpion strips.
Before I could accelerate he launched into what was probably the longest speech of his life. “Be careful. In Laverton we have no presence. Lizard man gang runs the street. Don’t get dead, I don’t want the paperwork.”
I nodded my thanks and drove off, considering offering him a lozenge after that, but decided not to push my luck.
Crossing the highway into Leverton wasn’t really the transition I’d expected. Contrary to what Hollywood would have you believe, there weren’t 44 gallon drums on fire on every corner, there was a distinct lack of upturned cars and gunshots did not ring out in the night air. In fact, it could have been a regular Tuesday night. Quiet but a few cars on the road. Fewer people walking about than normal and more hoodies than you’d expect on a temperate night. I guessed that some people were trying to conceal their no-so-human features, but had a feeling that if an inhuman gang had supremacy here some would be hiding the fact that they are in the same bodies they went to bed in two days ago.
Passing a service station I saw a new piece of graffiti, something I’d never seen before. It was a stylised reptile head with a norse rune on the forehead. I had a sinking feeling that was going to be bad news. “Oh great, Newtzies.”
Not long after I arrived at Paul’s place. It was a nice house with a tidy garden out the front. The effect was slightly marred by the burned hole in the garage door. Paul himself was sitting on a wooden garden bench beside the front door, head in his hands. I pulled into the driveway just enough to get the car off the road, not enough to disturb the mess. I climbed out, checked on the boys to make sure they hadn’t been disturbed by the jostling as I drove in, and closed the door.
Paul stood and shook my hand when I approached. I’m not a tall man and he’s a bit shorter, just taller than my shoulder. He had a runner’s physique, where I’m more built for comfort than speed. Salt and pepper hair showed his age where I, at near half his age, envied his lack of wrinkles. Still, he was ex-military and knew how to hold his own. And he hadn’t been sitting on his ass since retiring.
“Paul, how you holding up?” I could see his red rimmed eyes, but he looked resolute.
He cleared his throat before answering. “I, I just don’t know. I have no idea what to do here.” He looked me up and down. “You look like you’ve been in the wars, maybe worse than me.”
I gestured at the door. “Let’s get inside for the moment. I’ve got some ideas.”
By ideas, I meant I had read a stack of books and played countless hours of video games. I’d been the PC and the DM for many a table-top RPG as well. I knew, in general, what happened when one or two people went up against armed gang members on their own turf. If we wanted to survive the next twenty four hours we had to be smart.
We sat down at the kitchen table and discussed approaches. Neither of us was rich enough to pay what they’d likely ask. We were realistic about that. We didn’t have firearms, but there was a fair chance they did. I’m allergic to high velocity lead, it brings me out in big red blotches that hurt. A lot. With that in mind we decided it would be best to scout the crap out of the place where our wives were being kept, once we found the damn thing.
That realisation brought us to a sudden stop. “How the bloody hell are we going to figure THAT out?” Paul asked, dejectedly.
“Actually I might have I beginning of a clue there,” I said. I went on to explain the graffiti and what the copper had said. “So, what we need to look out for is the lizard head on buildings. If they’re really as in charge as claimed, they’re going to flaunt that power. So, how about we go for a drive, hit the high points of Werribee and Laverton. I’ve got a few thoughts on where a brand new warlord might set themselves up.”
Paul brightened at that. “That’s a good point. Where do you think we should go first? The base?”
“Nah. Laverton RAAF Base is a school with high fences,” I countered. “Everyone knows that. There’s nothing there that a gang would want. No weapons, no vehicles, nothing to be gained. On the other hand, you invade a base, even a useless one like that, you risk pissing off the ADF. And they don’t play nice. No, I’m thinking Werribee Plaza.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“The shopping centre? Why? There’s no weapons or vehicles there either.”
“Because everyone’s seen the movies. You want to go buck wild, you go to the shopping centre. Plus, when you’ve finished riding scooters down the halls and spraypainting every flat surface, there’s banks, jewellery shops, what have you for money and grocery stores full of fresh and preserved food in case of a standoff.” I ticked off the points on my fingers.
Paul conceded I was probably right. “So, assuming they’re at the Plaza, how do we get in?”
“I have absolutely no clue, that’s what this little guy is for.” I pulled a drone from my backpack. “We go over to wherever they are, toss this guy in the air, let him do a recce and come up with some answers for us.”
“Done. Let’s get the car packed and go for a drive.”
We brought the boys inside, and I stashed the tarp-wrapped mythical reptile down the side of the house. I still wasn’t going to intrude on the garage, it felt… intimate… for some reason. I’d go in when I was invited and not before. We made sure all the tech was in the car and the batteries charged or charging. Paul even provided a couple more 12V to USB adaptors to keep both out phones topped up.
I sat in the driver seat, phone tucked between my left forearm and gut, doing my best to jam the type C connector into the base of the device when Paul plucked it from my grip and plugged it in for me.
“I’m sure there’s a story behind that,” he indicated my stump with a jut of his chin. “Care to share?”
“I wasn’t going to, but I think what we’re about to do means you’re going to have to face it anyway.” I reached over and poked the screen set into the console, setting our destination. “Have you been inducted into The System?”
“I’ve seen it on the news but no, I haven’t. Why?”
I pulled out onto the road and let muscle memory take over, half listening to the GPS tell me where to go. “Well, you’re about to. We’re on a quest, a mission, whatever. I called up my menu when I popped into the loo before leaving and my journal entry had updated. We’re on the right track, which is good to know, but here’s the concern.” I paused to indicate and check both ways before pulling onto the main road. “You’re going to complete an objective soon. Soon after you’ll get a crash course on how this whole thing works. I recommend you complete the tutorial missions and read the instructions properly. This world we live in is about to get a lot more interesting.”
“May you live in interesting times, eh?’ Paul stared out the window pensively.
The rest of the drive was conducted in silence, each of us in our own thoughts. The journal update had been a lot more sarcastic than I’d conveyed to Paul but the gist of it was the same. We were on the right track, the Newtzies tags would lead us to the headquarters of the gang. I kept an eye out for them and could see the symbol adorning an increasing number of businesses and homes. Not only that, an increasing number of businesses that did not feature the tag had their frontage defaced in some way.
Approaching the Plaza from the south it was clear my hunch was spot on. Now there were indeed drums with fires going in the car park, utes with big flags protruding from their tops and other Americanistic, post apocalyptic tropes. A concerning number of the figures stomping about had bright red caps on, which is stupid for Australians. But no smarter than I’d expected, I thought.
I pulled over two blocks away and Paul and I got out. We set up shop in the boot of the Forrester and I used my newly enhanced strength to throw the drone as hard as I could into the air towards the shopping centre. The quadcopter’s motors kicked in at the apex of the arc and it held position high above, the whine it emitted barely audible at that height, waiting for instructions. I unlocked the tablet and punched in a set of coordinates to take the device on a loop of the building and return. The drone sped off into the dark and we settled in to watch.
I was glad I’d invested in a drone with a decent camera and a tablet with a good screen. I zoomed in on the groups loitering outside, not quite standing on guard but definitely alert. You could see the lights reflecting off the scales on the faces and hands, there were no humans amongst them. The lights also glinted off the surface of the assorted aluminium baseball bats, pawn shop swords and other improvised weaponry. Every entry was clearly closely watched as people wandered in and out.
Our attention was wrenched from the screen when a minibus thundered past, screeching around the corner on two wheels. It bounced over the speed bumps and slammed to a halt in front of the entrance nearest to us. The driver bounded out, yelled at the congregation around the door and ran back into the bus. The crowd dispersed to surrounding vehicles and the bus roared into the underground carpark.
“I think we’ve been seen,” I noted to Paul, grabbing the tablet. “Can you drive us to the park down the road? You know the backroads, we can lose them in the dark.”
I threw myself into the passenger seat as Paul jumped in the other side. I’d barely shut the door when Paul stepped on the accelerator. He whipped the car in a hard U-turn, the Subaru’s engine handling the manoeuvre smoothly. He indicated left and hooked the car into a side street.
I opened my mouth to say something, but Paul cut me off. “I know, force of habit. Won’t happen again.”
“Maybe turn the lights off too then?”
“Oh. Yeah.” He twisted the knob on the stalk.
We made several random turns through streets where the street lights were few and far between, I kept my eyes on the screen as I tried to get the drone to accept the last waypoint but the connection was spotty now. Eventually the RF gods smiled on me and I set the home point to the park that was our destination. Paul suddenly drove up the gutter, under a tree and killed the engine. After half a second he took his foot off the brake pedal too and reached over and hit the power button on the tablet. We sat in the dark breathing heavily as a ute with a massive light bar on the front and two trenchcoated yahoos in the back passed the cross street in front of us. I held my breath when one of the two standing in the tray looked in our direction but the ute didn’t stop and eventually the sound of revving engines and shouts died away.
I turned the tablet back on and Paul drove us the few streets over to the park. I climbed out of the car just in time to hear the motors wind down and see the drone drop out of the sky. It bounced off the lightpost and tumbled to the ground, one of the motor arms askew. I stumbled over to where it lay, my heart hammering still.
“Is it ok?” Paul stage whispered?
I straightened the arm gently. It was intended to fold for storage anyway and looked worse than it was. The blades were slightly nicked but I was able to smooth them out with my thumbnail. “Yeah, she’s ok. I’m going to pull the battery and the SD card and we can watch the video while it charges.”
We sat in the front of the car and watched the replay of the flight on the tablet. Every door was blockaded and there was no way we were getting into the carpark either. Not everyone we saw was carrying an obvious weapon but Paul pointed out they might have magic like the one who had attacked his house had.
“Wait, run it back,” Paul pointed at the screen.
I did so and saw what he had seen. The glass skylights were letting light out of the building and illuminating the roof. There were several maintenance doors up there and one had clearly been chocked open. The lack of activity on the roof was a clue that nobody inside had any idea it was even an option. The sort we were about to deal with had a tendency to enjoy drinking on roofs and throwing the bottles over the side.
“Good pickup. And there’s even an emergency ladder on the loading dock side. I reckon we could jump that fence,” I poked the screen, “leg it across the truck parking there,” I poked it again, “and be up that ladder before anyone spots us. Whaddaya think?”
Paul sighed. “Not going to work. That ladder is well off the ground for security reasons. How are we going to get up there?”
“Well, I’m going to climb the rope you lower down to me.”
“And how do I do that? Fly?”
I grinned. “Have you ever heard of the Fastball Special?”