Excerpt - Racers of the Apocalypse

Dawn. The abandoned gas station. This well has run dry. Tyson watches as Joel’s car rolls into view down the highway. The sound is engine darkly purrs, dopplered as it approaches Tyson. The Red Beast comes to a stop, right near Tyson’s White Archangel. Joel steps out of the beast, his eyes on Tyson. There is only silence, except the hollow sound of the wind. A storm is on its way. Its ozone smell is in the air.

-So your tank is full? Joel asks.
-Yeah. Are you ready for this? Tyson counters. Knowing between them, all they had left to gamble were their cars and their reputation.
-Man. I was born with a knife between my teeth. Joel grins like the Devil.

Some where in the distance, there is a low rumble. And then the Flash. Duck and Cover. A new star is born on the earth. It has begun. This well has run dry and they will fight over another. Joel and Tyson cover their eyes from the flash. In front of them they see the silhouette of the city as the glow of the new and brief star dimmed. Time has slowed, and the rivals watch the shadow of the city shatter like black glass. The shockwave will be felt soon. The wind picks up. There is no Tomorrow. Only the few moments of Today remains.

Joel and Tyson look at each other. Quietly absorbing what has happened to the world around them and between them. They race to their car. Slamming doors. Starting engines to a roar. A lane to each of them, no one is leaving the city anyway. A cloud of storming debris is absorbing its ruined shape. Engines gunning in neutral, Tyson and Joel give each other one last eye. The world has become too small for the both of them now. Better dead than alone together. Kick it into Gear. Pedal to the Metal. Punch it. Tyres screech and scream, Rubber burns and tarmac flies. En-Too-Oh burns bright blue. Engines roar to life. The Archangel and Beast buck and kick and speed down the road. Faster and faster, Tyson and Joel head towards the shockwave. Gears are upped as both Beast and Archangel are pushed their limits they were engineered for. It is crystal clear to them now. They raced for the money. They raced for the glory. They raced for the same woman. Now they race towards their own annihilation. First one to the Apocalypse wins.

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My Work

I have finished Echoes, and am currently working on a new project. So right now this site will be used to track the progress of this new project and to talk about other things namely small stories about things that I have encountered in my life. Which isn’t much, I haven’t lived a very exciting life. Well, not exciting by my standards. Maybe other people, who get out less than I do and spend their moments reading this as opposed to say, playing a MMORPG or surfing for porn. Maybe you collect stamps and you stumbled across a site that referenced me.

So lets start with the jobs I have done since it since the law stated that I work and no longer be a parasite to the state.

One time I worked at a drycleaners. My sole purpose at being at the drycleaners was watch the shop on a Saturday and hand over garments that people were picking up or dropping off. It was easy. Ludicriously easy. I would do a good deal of drawing to pass the time. This job was pretty cool. But also weird. I was the tallest person there. The thing is dry-cleaning places have a series of rails for running the clothes along to keep everything mobile. Unfortunately, everything is quite low and for some strange reason all of these people shorter than me (I’m about 5’9”) were hired. They breeze throughout the entire building without a care. However, I have to duck. Otherwise I would hit anything hanging from the rails, including the rails themselves. It was weird to feel tall, considering the late bloomer that I am.

For the better part of a month I attempted to work for a media production company. It was a small one, mostly devoted to the local business and surrounding farmers. It’s principle customers were a series of cattle sales companies, who wanted everything from videotape of bulls, to brochures, websites, and Flash-based interactive catalogues. I wanted to sign on as a Flash-developer, because that’s what I heard they needed. However, they assigned me to build this database, to be used for tracking employee times.

Now having come out of university, with some software development experience (this I use very loosely) they assumed I could develop a functioning piece of software for cheap. They were wrong. I sat around part-time for a month (I was working a retail job as well) trying to build this database. However, assistance was minimal and eventually I walked out, gaining more hours at the store I was actually employed at. By my calculations, they owed me four hundred lucre. I was never paid.

I worked in a super market for several years through high school and mostly university. It was mind-numbing work. I didn’t advance very far, because I was still under the Malaise of Being Educated. And while I know how truly disgusting a supermarket is in the backroom, I can still stomach shopping there. This happened to be my first job, only because my parents, despite the fact they said they loved me, stopped giving me money solely for this reason. If you do possess a mind that goes a mile a minute and slips into a world of it’s own. Do not get this job, because you’ll get plenty of time to think. Think about how you came to be here. And think about how you may escape.

After getting fired from an Emergency Communication Centre job, I worked at two electronics retail stores. It started as something to get me through Christmas and because I was such an “earnest worker” it carried on for another two years. In this time, I learned the fun of the stock take and that I could be a wrangler of people. That it’s hilarious when the acting manager rocks up to work with a hangover after waking in his car from the previous night festivities. That you can get a front seat to the Managers Life and the terrible soap-opera style downward spiral that it became. And you with the carefully placed words to Area Managers you can help get a certain manager fired and return to work within two months.

I worked at an Emergency Communication Centre for the Fire Department. It was intense work, you had to sit poised ready for the red phone to ring. This didn’t always happen, so you may have spent hours drawing, writing, what have you. But when It Did Ring, you had to be ready. You had to approach it with an Apocalyptic Zen. Sometimes it would just be smoke, other times it would be a chemical spill. Most of the time it was a car accident, or a smoking power pole. Sometimes the person on the other end would be calm and collected, others would be screaming down the line panicking that everything that was their world was going up in smoke. I could pretty much do it all. I could turn out (yes that was the term for dispatching) the vehicles, I knew all of the vehicle code names, the radio protocol, the highways, the stations, the procedures and SOPs for almost every known incident. But they fired me. I boned an oral exam on the support procedures. Things like whom a member of the public could talk to about smoke alarms or complaints. After that, and some office politics, I found myself without a job and with a looming depression.

Although I was screwed, the work didn’t really suit me. The rotating roster didn’t allow you to become familiar with anyone and this also facilitated others to take advantage of the staff. You would work 4 days, two 10 hour day shifts, two 14 hour night shifts and then four days off, but you were practically a zombie for one and a half of those days anyway. Though I enjoyed parts of it. It was no help to my social life.

The sweetest job I ever received was delivery job that a pharmacy offered me. All I had to do was send packaged drugs to the elderly. These people couldn’t make it to the store, I sent them their weekly meds. They gave me a car that I almost had several accidents in. Most of the people were friendly, only because you were one of a handful of people that decided to drop by and pay them some attention. The best part was the ability to crank up the radio and cruise around town. I learnt more about my hometown and where things were in that two months than I had in previous years. If I ever end up in a position where I live very comfortably without working, then I would happily take up this job again.

I am currently working at an IT Help Desk, which in turn works for a large collection of public servants scattered all across the Antipodes. Their muck ranges from simple problems such as not being able to open a file, or lost passwords, to servers being down and or a web-based application decides to refuse to work. Usually when this happens, hundreds of clients call us about the problem just to let us know that it’s not working. It’s up to us to tell them that a) we already know about the problem (from the 50 previous calls), b) there’s nothing that we can do until second level support manage to fix it and lastly, c) despite this, to have a nice day.

Not everyone appreciates the ‘nice day’ part. My particular role is one part quality control and 30 parts of babysitter of Adults. The people that make up the Help Desk is a bit like a pirate crew. Not like the Disney franchise, but a collection of criminals, misfits, outcasts, lost souls, the psychologically unsound and the manically depressed. We all work like drudges, with somewhat nebulous support and training, with a system that should have been upgraded around two years ago. While I make this sound negative, most of these people are really fun to get along with and I consider them good friends.

I managed to get this job through several phone calls from a contract employment agency, which seemed to like what I had to offer. One phone interview later, I found myself packing my bag and saying goodbye to everything that was my life in the Old Town and then driving down to the Glowing Octopus.

At the end of the day, you don’t know what you will be doing next. Because next week anything can happen. An opportunity that’s too good to miss. Too many bridges burnt or too many too far away. Your company may be bought up by ruthless competitors, or find itself engaged in Chapter Eleven proceedings. Or you might strike big and all of that work, all of the drudgery, ass-kissing, late nights and early morning would pay off. But most of it is just pure unadulterated cunning that will see you through.

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Echoes - Epilogue

A gold-tipped cigarette sat in an old black Bakelite ashtray. The trail of smoke gentle rose to the ceiling. Fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered. The room had no windows, with cinder block walls painted a dull military grey. A man, dressed in black sat at the table at the centre of the room, with his seat facing the door opposite the table. Across the table were reports of various natures. Test results from the lab. Supply stock takes. Reconnaissance updates. Without looking away from the reports, he reached across to the ashtray, picking the cigarette with his gloved hand and placed it between his lips.

There was a light knock at the door. “Enter,“ the man said blandly, his concentration remaining at the current report, the health and status of a particular prisoner. He exhaled, coming out on a thin cloud. A man in military dress entered the room and stood near the table.

“You know, I thought all soldiers saluted their superiors, Colonel,” the man in black said without looking from the page.

The Colonel, squinted his eye, resisting to fully speaking his mind, “You’re not military.”

“Ah, but I have been given authority over this operation. Carte Blanche was the term that was used, I believe.” The man in black smirked, eyeing the Colonel. Then his attention returned to the report. “I take it you have come to air a grievance or some such.”

It’s him again, the soldier we found. He’s hospitalised another two. Looked as if he didn’t try. I have another sixteen going through psychiatric evaluation. The prisoners can do things to them. At this rate, I doubt there will be enough men to adequately guard this facility. Even with the measures we have taken. One of them,” the Colonel paused, not sure how much information he should relay to the man in black, “knew things about me. Things I have told no one.”

“Really?” The man in black looked up at the Colonel, “Well that is interesting. Add that man to the list.” The man in black put down his report, and then steeped his fingers, “Now any news from the city?

“We managed to round up another two dozen. Sweeps throughout the city show evidence of heavy fighting. Explosives were planted beneath the most important structures. While it appears two groups of citizenry were involved in the fighting, all of the survivors belong to neither of those groups. Once we establish a more permanent presence in the city, we will begin cataloguing the dead and disposing the bodies. However, we believe that some managed to slip through the containment line that we established around the city. It cannot be many, but we don’t have the numbers yet.”

“We’ll have to expand the net then. To a 300 km radius. I will call in for additional forces along with a rotation for the deployment here. Including your replacement.”

The Colonel nodded and left solemnly, closing the door behind him. The man in black drew on the cigarette again and returned to the reports. He opened a file that just came from telemetry and imaging. Opening the folder, he flipped over the cover sheet and looked at the first photo. The shot was made early in the morning shortly after the interference over the city began to dissipate. The first photo is an open field near a forest there is a figure in the middle. The next photo is an enhancement, showing a man running from the city.

Yes, we’ll get them, the man in black thought, we’ll get them all.

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The Slip

The hospital walls are bleached white, so much so it almost hurts the eyes. The chessboard-tiled floor is slick with dark blood. From around the corner a guard flies through the air, slowly, as if time has been turned down. Blood pours out from the guards wounds as he pinwheels through air. Crashing into the solid wall, bones snap to the sound of dry tinder, leaving a crumpled mess on the floor. The Doctor comes around the corner, and he’s fast. I raise my weapon to fire, the gun discharging round after round, with empty shells peeling from the weapon. The Doctor dodges each, always advancing until he is range. Scalpel in hand, he cuts across me and through the gas mask I can see a fountain of black spilling from me. My heart does the rest to bleed me dry. Everything swirls, darkness floods in, as the last thing I see is the razor-smile of the Doctor.

I wake with a start on a metal floor. Turning over I find myself beneath the twisted wreckage of the metal staircase. By some miracle I haven’t been crushed. Crawling free, I see the damage that I have wrought. The incinerator is in ruins, nothing more than a smoking shell of steel. The metal dome is gone, so I can see the sky. It’s pulsating and heaving as if attempting to keep together. But it’s dying, I can feel it. I’m still high enough to see parts of the city. Most of is in flames, and the distant noises of explosions and fighting can still be heard.

I climb the stairs carefully, hoping the now fragile construction does not give way beneath me. I reach the ground and immediately notice the black car parked nearby. I hear steps in the loose gravel behind me. Turning to see who it is, but I am too late as a solid punch sends me to the ground. “You had to do it,” A voice says coldly.

Hands reach down and pick me up and I look up to see who it is. Mandlebrot. “You killed Ina.” Behind dark shades burns a rage I have never seen before in anyone. Black streaks run down his face. “You destroyed everything we built.” With one arm he lifts me up and reels back his other, readying another punch. His fist catapults into me, so hard I fly through the air. I hit a tree, feeling ribs crack as I land on the ground. The black water that had settled on it now showers onto me. “You killed our God.” Mandlebrot steps over as I try to get up. His fists come at me. I try to block where I can, but he still lands blows upon me. His last one sends me closer to the river shore. Trying to remain conscious, I get to my feet again. I can taste blood. Mandlebrot grabs me drags me to the river. I struggle, weakly trying to fight him off, but he is far stronger than I ever imagined. “You may think you have killed the Echo. But it will live on in me. And in you.” His hands come around my throat and then he sends my head into the dark waters of the river. I cannot breath. All of Mandlebrot’s strength and will are focused on my death here and now. My vision goes as I begin to drown. With my last ounce of strength, hand is searching for something, anything, in the soft riverbed. Somehow I feel a hard lump of stone move into my hand, pull it free of the water and strike Mandlebrot in the head. It’s hard enough to make him release his grip and stagger backwards. I rise out of the water. Mandlebrot looks at me, with black blood pouring down his face. This time with both hands, I hit him with the river stone again. He goes down. I don’t stop. He tries to get up so I strike. He raises his arms. I strike. Each time he moves I hammer down the stone. Again and again and again. Bludgeoning his skull, crushing it more and more with each hit until I realise that I’m not hitting him any more, but the stone is landing to the soft soil of the river shore. With heaving pants, I cast the stone aside. I stand, wiping Mandlebrot’s blood from my face with my sleeves. Searching his pockets, I find the keys to his car. I weakly get to my feet and begin to stagger towards the vehicle. I cough and my whole chest hurts. I look at my hand. My blood is a dark crimson. I make it to the car, open the door and fall inside. I pull my legs in and put my head back on the headrest, closing my eyes. I need to pull it together. I cough again, tasting the iron tang of blood. I open my eyes, close the door and turn the ignition.

Mandlebrot’s vehicle is a well-tuned machine that is a blur on the empty smoking streets of the city. Good parts of the city are destroyed. Her buildings and monuments are still ablaze from the fighting. Bodies, rubble and the empty shells of vehicles are strewn through the streets. The canals are filled black water and the dead. Naked, leafless trees line the roads. Everything has been touched by fire. I constantly find bridges that have been destroyed and have to rethink my course. The heavy smoke makes it difficult to see. I pass by the empty shells of what used to be homes. Now this place is the Netherworld. I wonder how many have escaped. I drive by a cemetery, which strangely looks untouched. There near the edge of the road is a statue of an angel. The recent storm makes it appear as if she is weeping black tears. I cannot be the only one left alive.

I stop at an intersection trying to decide where to go next. I hear another vehicle approach me, its loud engine growling through the thick smoke, like some jungle predator. A red convertible pulls up beside me. It’s top is down and I see a young blonde woman, her long hair waving in the wind. Another figure leans forward to see me. Behind a mask of splattered black-blood is the razor smile of the Doctor. I stare back in horror. The girl smiles and the convertible speeds off into the gloom. I attempt to match their speed to keep up, but their lights have disappeared. Soon another light appears. As I get closer I can make out a pillar of fire beneath a mound of some description. I soon realise what it is.

A giant pile-up of cars burns before me. Just beyond the mound is a great gap in the wall to freedom. The pile-up must have been made by the last desperate attempts of survivors. For one reason or another they crashed into each other and burned, a final punishment from the thing above. The mound of burning wrecks is like a singularity. I can feel the pull towards it. I can feel the thing above. It’s does not want to let me go. It needs me to stay and die here. I speed towards the fire and the broken cars. My body has turned to stone, my vision swims, becoming hazy. Everything is a blur. Suddenly, as if I’m going to slam head on, my white-knuckled hands jolt at the wheel, my foot mixes brake and accelerator, causing me to slingshot around the burning cars. Flames lick the side of my car. I can smell the burning petrol. Free from the gravity of the wreckage, my car speeds through the hole in the wall
and plummets down an embankment. Landing hard on the rain soaked ground, the car crashes through young trees and low branches. I lose count on the times it rolls. Glass shatters, tyres burst and car is shedding parts. I see a large oak in my path, I cover my face with my arms as I slam into it. Everything becomes black.

Regaining consciousness I see the windshield shattered, branches and green foliage poke through the cracked holes. I stumble from the car. My legs, my entire body wanting to get away, I try to run yet something feels heavy in my chest. I begin to cough. Something won’t leave me. My fit causes me to fall by a creek, my knees landing in the water. Finally, my heaving dislodges something, as I vomit it into the waters. I open my eyes and find a black oily mass flowing downstream as the creek takes it away.

It takes a while for the realisation that I am finally beyond the city walls to sink in. All around me the verdant green of the forest blooms around me. I wash my face in the clear waters. It’s cold but I don’t care. I feel alive again. I hear a noise, a rustling from the nearby woods. A deer, a young buck, his antlers have just started fanning out, steps clear of the tree near the creek. It gets closer to me, so close in fact I could almost reach out and touch it. I remain still as it sniffs the air around me. Then, as if losing interest, it bounds back into the forest.

Crossing the creek, I step into a clearing and look back at the city. It’s once formidable skyline is cracked and broken. Smoke fills the air, but the clouds that once enshrouded the city begin to break up showing the dawn blue sky. I look to the east and, for the first time in what feels like years, I see the sun rising. Tears run down my face.

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Moloch

The storm had finally stopped when I left the tunnels. The black clouds remained overhead and all around me. The water below, all of it was oily and slick. I sat in the small boat as the looming dark shape of the Incinerator towered over me. The entire place was once used to power the city, and help eliminate waste. Now it is a relic, still used to burn refuse. I trace its outline with my eye, following the lines of pipes and supports, up to a great tall series of smoke stacks. Each of the stacks billows great plumes of black smoke into the sky. The smoke leaves slowly, twisting, warping and coiling to form into the dark clouds that enshroud the entire city. The clouds look sicklier every time I look at them. The feeling in the back of my head tells me my time is running out and that all of my answers are here. Cover from the canals has run out. I pull the boat to the edge of the river among some long grass and move to find something to hide behind.

The rain has stained everything. I can smell it in the air. The ground is slick like ice. I take cover behind some trees and notice it looks sprayed in sludge. It’s still dark, and it’s difficult to see, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone here. Odd.

In the distance, there is the pop and bang of an explosion. I can see flames erupt on the far edge of the city. I need to move. Advancing on the building, I spot an old doorway. Metal and rusted, but I can see the padlock is brand new, almost glittering against the aged door. Pressed for time, I need to sacrifice my cover. Pulling out the gun, I take a few steps back and fire. The lock shatters from the bullet. I kick the door open. The whole place appears empty. There are no alarms, no inquisitive guard. For a moment there is silence. Suddenly, there are sounds of pressurised gases, steam and smoke.

I work my way towards the centre. Drawing closer towards the sound that goes every two minutes or so and then silence, except for the sounds made by myself, walking across pressed metal floors and opening rusted doors. Some doors are unusable, locked, jammed or welded shut. I find myself climbing stairs that creak with age. I wonder why this site is empty and my thoughts are interrupted by a popping sound of another distant explosion. Then comes the sound of the incinerator. The closers I get the more detailed the sound becomes, the clanking of ancient machinery, the hydraulics pressurising, and the gas like hissing and the roar of the fire and then the clanking of machinery again.

I finally reach a door that gives, but still makes its protests known, creaking so loudly, the noises fills the cavernous room beyond. Ahead of me I see a narrow gangway. This gangway runs above the main incinerator, on top is a large metal dome, made of blackened metal, the same colour as the sky. To my right are the twisted and burnt out pipes that lead to the smoke stack. Walking out onto the gangway I look down below. There are six or so conveyor belts all leading to a centre trap-door that look like the jaws of a great monster made of steel and fire. Smoke rises from between the teeth of the twin doors. I survey the conveyors. They are filled with what I first make out as refuse, and then realise there are patches of red amongst them. Red books. Hundreds, possibly thousands of them piled onto the conveyor belts. Everything is fed into the incinerator. I step back and look over the other side of the gangway. In amongst the red books are other items, photo albums, photos, jewellery, furniture, entire music collections, paperback novels, portraits, the flotsam and jetsam of human existence, prized possessions and heirlooms. I soon begin to see the odd hand, foot or face surface among the refuse. Everything we have held dear has been cast into the fire and this becomes the smoke that blankets our city. It is the black rain that has poisoned our water and choked the life from everything it falls upon. Has the virus done all of this? Our method of control had only caused the situation to become much worse. How did I not see this? How long has it been between the days, when I saw the suicides and the murders to when I was here? Time has lost meaning here. I hear the clanking of machinery, the conveyors begin to shunt, their cargo quivers and shudders into motion. The hissing and pumping sounds of the hydraulics begin and then the Maw parts it’s black steel teeth, revealing a great mouth of fire. Tongues of flame lick the sides of the maw and the conveyors feed it once again. The pictures, keepsakes, treasures, prizes, books and bodies cascade in, melting into the white-hot centre of the mouth. The heat is unbearable, even from my height. I cover my face with my arm, my eyes searching into the very white hot whirlpool, as if I am poised on falling into it myself. Soon the clanking of the steel jaws shields the maw once again. Silence.

Stepping back, I felt my hand reach across my chest to my heart, but only feeling the hard lump that the madman Emmersen had given me. I reach inside my coat and pull out the parcel. Wrapped in dirty brown paper, I feel the square shape of the “weapon” Emmersen had given, apart from the pistol. I tear the paper away. It’s a black book. Roughly the same shape or size, but it appears as if it was handmade. The pages are uneven and made of different qualities. I flip through the book, reading what there is

Day 14
Containment has been breached. While we have isolated ourselves in the western quarter of the hospital, time is running out for all of us. With half of us already gone, we are not hoping for an outcome that is favourable. Emmersen seems to be coping well, despite what he has done to himself. Julian has been working around the clock towards find someway to contain the virus before it plagues the rest of the city, though I don’t trust his methods. I remember there was a time when performing experiments of his nature was illegal. Van Beck and his team have not woken since yesterday, no matter what we try. Even adrenaline doesn’t work. I sent Kramar to look for Dean, but he hasn’t returned -

I skip the rest and flick through the pages to another entry:

This city has taken everything I have loved. My daughter. My wife. I have nothing. I have heard of people that have lived beneath the city. With everyone around practically infected, I figure why not. I have nothing else to life for.

Flicking the pages by it lands on two pages. In huge black letters is scrawled:

YOU.

I turn the page

WILL

And turn the page

NOT

And turn the page

HAVE

And turn the page

US

I close the book. Emmersen was right. Everything had become clear. I knew exactly what to do.

I look over the side, judging where I could get the book to land. I know in the back of my mind, I should get it on a conveyor belt. It might give me enough time to get away. Just as I prepare to drop the book, I hear a voice from behind me.

“I thought I would find you here.” It’s Ina. She is wearing dark shades that are covering her eyes.

I draw the book close to me, and at the same time, reach slowly around for the pistol tucked into my belt.

“I need to stop this, Ina,” I say, “I can do this and we can leave together.”

“You were always a terrible liar. I never thanked you for saving my life, but I guess I always knew I wouldn’t be leaving this place”.

I slowly draw the gun, pulling it to my side, feeling for the safety catch.

“You see I didn’t have a choice. They have –“ she seems to fumble for a word, “They have a machine. It is the only way I can describe it. It takes everything from you. Makes you empty. You become with it.”

“With what?” I ask.

“With It. The Echo.” She nods her head upwards to the sky. She reaches up for her glasses and removes them and then she looks at me. I find myself staring at her. At her eyes, or where her eyes used to be, now replaced by obsidian orbs that feel they stare in all directions, unblinking and unflinching. Eyes are as dark as the depths of space, inescapable.

“Ina don’t” I try to reason with what’s left of her and my arms tenses, ready to fire.

“I don’t have a choice. You will meet the machine and join the echo. Or. You will burn with the rest of them and join the echo.” She stiffens upon saying this.

There is a moment of stillness, like the calm before the storm. And then Ina charges. I raise my pistol and fire, but in haste, only grazing her shoulder. Ignoring the wound, she crashed into me at full speed. I fall on the metal floor of the gangway. The gun and book both slide out of reach. Ina is clawing at my face. Hands manage to catch them both, using everything I have, I push her off of me, hard enough she lands heavily against metal floor. I manage to get up in time, as Ina is quickly on her feet charging back into me. I have some hesitation about hitting her, but the feeling in the back of my head, tells me she is no longer the woman I knew. I block her hands with one forearm and let fly with a fist. It hits home, forcing her back. I take one step back, closer to the gun and book. She comes in again, I anticipate her charge, and counter her, forcing her back even further. The clanking of the conveyors has begun again. She is on the floor again and as she gets up I make for my weapons. Snatching up the book and the gun, I turn as she slams into me again. I can hear the hissing pressure of the hydraulics. The gun discharges into her chest. Metal scrapes on metal as maw begin to open. Ina with the last of her strength grabs for the book, I try to pull her away, but she has it. I push and she goes over the rail, tearing the book from my hands. I look over the edge into the light of the flames below and for seconds she her descend into the white. The maw closes.

Realising what has happened, I begin to run. I barely make it to the end of the gangway when the incinerator begins to rumble like thunder. There is no explosion, but instead, it feels like an implosion. Everything feels torn towards the collapsing incinerator. The floor quakes. Metal is bent and twisted so fast and fiercely it screams. I hit a metal staircase and fall down it, as the floor gives way and the world turns sideways

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