THE STORM
episode one
by
Albert Sartison
Copyright 2015 Albert Sartison
1.01
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ALSO BY ALBERT SARTISON
The Contact
Beyond the Event Horizon
Fundamental Force
*
Entangled
Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 1
The rush hour in the metro, whether morning or evening, was the very time David hated the most. People, pressed together like sardines in a tin, stood swaying slightly with blank faces, waiting for their stop. Unfortunately he did not have a car, and it was too far to travel between work and home twice a day on foot or by bicycle. So he had to put up with these daily journeys, shutting himself off mentally by putting on headphones and turning up the volume.
He felt much more at ease immersed in the world of electronic music. There, in the computer world, was where he lived. He only appeared here in the real world when circumstances required – and did so very unwillingly. If it hadn’t been for the need to pay the bills, he would have kept his contact with people to a minimum. It was so hard, having to waste so much time with them in various stupid and pointless conversations...
Unexpectedly, the carriage braked sharply, filling its interior with the unbearable screeching of metal wheels against steel rails. The whole crowd was shifted forward by inertia, carrying David with it. The train stopped and became silent.
David sighed with irritation. Tired after a long working day, all he could think of was finally getting home, taking a shower, eating and flopping down on the settee. Now the moment when his back would touch the soft settee had been postponed indefinitely while the metro train stood here in this damned tunnel.
“Attention please!” A loud voice rang out from the loudspeaker. David pulled the headphones off one ear.
“For technical reasons, traffic in the tunnel has been suspended for an indefinite period. Please exit the carriage and proceed along the emergency platform in the direction in which the train was moving to the next station. We apologise for the inconvenience.”
The people in the carriage started grumbling. Several indignant comments were heard and an instant later, a sound arose like the murmuring of innumerable bees.
“This is unheard-of!”
“I’m not going anywhere!”
“I haven’t paid good money to walk along a stinking tunnel!!”
David wearily closed his eyes and passed his palm across his face. He just didn’t have the strength for indignation, he was just too tired. And he didn’t see much point in shouting at the empty air anyway.
He stood still for a little longer, waiting for people to start leaving the carriage, but it seemed that most of them preferred to stay where they were to demonstrate their anger at this monstrous injustice. It was a waste of time and, in particular, a waste of the time he had to rest before the next working day began.
Realising that nothing was happening, he finally decided to act. He pulled the headphones off completely, wound the cord around them and put them in his pocket. After looking around, he touched a man in a dark coat standing in front of him on the shoulder.
“Let me pass, please.”
The man turned around, leaving the way free for him as far as was possible in such a packed crowd. David pushed past him with difficulty, and also past several other passengers, who gave way before him as they felt the movement behind them. Reaching the door, he pressed the emergency release button. Something squeaked in the doors in front of him, but the two halves stayed in place. He grabbed the handle of one door and pulled it sideways. The door gave way, leaving a clear exit.
The emergency platform was only three paces away. David jumped and felt his shoes sink into the soft soil of the tunnel. It felt like some sort of disgusting mess. He looked around. The platform was raised a good metre above the ground. It wouldn’t be easy to climb onto it, he needed steps. A little way ahead of him he saw something of the sort and, listening to the squelching of his shoes in the mud, he set off in that direction. The commotion from the train was still echoing all along the tunnel.
After several steps, he noticed that the noise had ceased. He stopped and looked back in surprise. It turned out that the whole carriage was watching what he was doing with interest, like birds in the wilderness, incapable of taking any initiative themselves. David shrugged his shoulders and continued on his way.
When he had climbed onto the platform, he saw before him a tablet shining with a dull green light in the darkness. If it was to be believed, it was about one and a half kilometres to the next station, but a hundred metres away in the opposite direction there was an emergency exit to the surface.
There was no sense in going on to the next station, since traffic appeared to have stopped on the entire branch line, so David decided to make for the emergency exit. When he reached it he found it was a well with iron rungs leading vertically upwards.
Without pause for thought, he clambered up. Fortunately the metro line was not very deep, it seemed to him. There was no illumination in the well, so he scrambled upwards by sense of touch, hoping not to stumble on anything in the darkness. He could hear the revolting squeaking of rats all around him.
A minute later, and shuddering with revulsion, he reached the hatch. Moving the heavy iron disc to one wide, he stood open-mouthed – instead of the starry night sky, he saw wavy green strips. The Northern Lights were spread out before him.
The Northern Lights in these latitudes?
David crawled out, shook himself and looked around, hoping to find out where he was. He was now standing in the middle of a pavement and it did not appear to be a street he knew. After turning around and around a few times in a vain attempt to see at least one familiar landmark, tall building or TV tower, he got out his smartphone. The ‘No Signal’ icon showed up in the corner of the screen.
He smiled ironically and switched on the map. There was no dark blue spot indicating his current position. Apparently the smartphone was awaiting a signal from the navigation satellites enabling it to determine his position. Time went by, but the spot did not appear. Eventually a message came up:
NO SIGNAL. DEAR USER, SIGNALS FROM THE NAVIGATION SATELLITES ONLY COVER THE DIRECT VISIBILITY ZONE. PLEASE MAKE SURE THERE ARE NO TALL BUILDINGS BLOCKING YOUR VIEW OF THE SKY.
He looked around sceptically. To the right there was just emptiness, a huge field overgrown with weeds with a low wire fence around it. Most of the paint had flaked off the wire and the fence itself was sagging in several places.
In front and behind there was only the pavement without a single tree, to the left of which ran a broad street. The nearest building was a gas station about a hundred metres away, little more than two storeys high. He sighed in disappointment, put his smartphone back in his pocket and set off for the gas station.
The lights were still on inside, but the flimsy door was locked. David pulled it back and forth a few times, but in vain. Then he knocked on the glass. The scared face of a young salesgirl peeked out from behind the counter.
“We’re closed!” she shouted, shaking her h
ead.
“I only want to ask you something!” he shouted in reply through the glass of the closed door.
The salesgirl hesitated a few seconds, then signalled him to come over. David obediently approached the window, which had a talking device installed. He bent over the silver chest-level microphone.
“Thank you, miss. Could you call me a taxi?”
She nodded, lifted the receiver of the nearby telephone and began dialling a number, but stopped before completing it. Then she pressed ‘Disconnect’ several times. Obviously not satisfied with the result, she pressed it a few more times.
“I’m sorry, sir, the telephone isn’t working,” she replied with a slightly apologetic look.
The situation was gradually beginning to irritate David. He swore to himself.
“Tell me, how do I get to Fulton Park?”
The salesgirl gestured towards the road.
“Go along this street as far as the bridge, then turn left at the first intersection. That street crosses Fulton Street, so you should be able to manage from there.”
“How far is it, do you know?”
She shook her head.
“I’ve no idea, I only come here by car. But on foot, I think it should take about an hour and a half.”
David swore under his breath, thanked her and went back to the street. Maybe he could hitch a lift.
He stood under a street light to make himself well visible and started thumbing. Cars flashed by one after another as if they hadn’t seen him. Looking after the tenth car to ignore him, he returned to the pavement and started walking.
The street looked an unnatural colour, reflecting the green Northern Lights. Looking up, he could see the strips of light high in the sky, waving slightly as if being blown by the wind. If it had been his day off, the evening would have been ideal for a walk in the fresh air. The light created a pleasant atmosphere of the unusual and mysterious.
Since moving to the city four years ago, this was the first time David had walked in this part of it. Looking around him, he could not say that it was a place he would like to live. He himself lived in a district that was not one of the most expensive, but it was certainly better than this one. Scruffy buildings, rubbish on the pavements, stray dogs; there were none of these where he lived.
He had already passed three vacant lots and there were houses dotted about, once lived in but now abandoned, with windows broken or wide open. A light from a wood fire could be seen in one of them. What a depressing place!
He looked far ahead of him. Where the city centre ought to be, a strange reddish light could be seen. David’s apartment block was at the other end of town, but its windows looked out directly onto the city centre. He had often admired the skyline with its range of different-coloured lights as he sat nursing a beer on his balcony. But he could not remember any illumination like this.
Half an hour later, he saw the bridge over the river that the salesgirl had mentioned. To his dismay, David noticed a group of people standing right in the middle of it. Somewhere within him he felt an unpleasant foreboding and decided to wait in the next side street till they had gone. He was a stranger here and did not know the ways of the local riffraff, so better safe than sorry.
Without changing pace, he turned into the next side street as if that was where he had meant to go all along and stopped in the shadows, never taking his eyes off the bridge, where they were arguing loudly about something, as if trying to sort something out. This went on for several minutes, then two people suddenly separated from the crowd. One of them was leading the other, who had his hands behind him as if they were tied. Leading him to the edge of the bridge, he started shouting in his face. From where he stood, David could not make out the words, but the sense of the ‘discussion’ was clear.
Suddenly another one left the crowd, went up to the first two and extended his hand towards the second one. At that distance, it was not possible to see clearly what he was holding in his hand, but the gesture was quite unambiguous – he was aiming a gun at him.