Dystopian Fiction / Sci-Fi

Originally Published in Reading Room Cafe Project Anthology (December 2015)

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The door was sealed, mechanically bolted and air tight. Three inches of reinforced carbon alloy, with a single digital lock combination pad and hydraulically assisted handle. Like its door, the room was sterile. Crisp white walls. Dull black floor. A single oval table and eight silver chairs. A safety security box in the corner.

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Everything was bright, but there were no lights visible.

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There was banging at the door.

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Dennis was catching his breath back. His Moss suit was damp with sweat and the wisps of flaxen curls on his head were clinging to his scalp and ears. A razor sharpness penetrated the bottom two ribs on his right side. It was agony as he heaved and retched. Red spots danced in his vision, exploding into sickly yellow masses with pinpoint black dots spinning at the centre. His temples began to lightly throb.

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Though he was thin, Dennis was badly out of shape. He had run no more than two hundred yards, leaping down a small flight of steps, before sprinting down the corridor to room 4A. Yet, no athleticism or great skill had secured his place amidst the few standing around him. Sheer luck had put him in a decent place at the right time. Adrenaline had done the rest.

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The face of the woman flashed through his mind. He looked down at his feet and remembered a hollow, cracking sensation.

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 He pushed it aside for now, inhaling deeply and standing straight. The pain in his ribs was subsiding a little; it was becoming easier to breathe.

Already, they had taken their jackets off.

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All men, that was his first thought. The fat two closest to him were wheezing heavily, both purple faced and glossy with sweat. Rich blue veins pulsed along their brows and temples whilst their great jowls shuddered frightfully. One was advisor to a late chief whip, recently photographed hanging upside down from a lamppost, naked beaten and barely conscious. Reports later suggested he had been flayed by a mob.

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The other man was a back bench nobody, with a constituency based somewhere in the south. Dennis was stuck to remember either of their names. It didn’t seem to matter much. Everyone in the room was the same really – pigs screaming at the sound of thunder.

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Dennis took the seat closest to him. He hadn’t taken his jacket off and quickly wished he had. He went to stand and thought better of it; any act of indecision was likely to be noticed.

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Clayton Townsend was in the room; he’d been Home Secretary for a brief period in the chaos of the last five years. He took charge whilst the others caught their breath.

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‘Right well, we all knew this would probably happen someday. We all made preparations for it, yes?’

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There were a few tired grunts and nods around the room. Dennis had made some arrangements quite recently, as tensions with the Pan-Asian Alliance had worsened suddenly. Even with the arrangements made, Dennis knew that what was to come would be very difficult.

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The face of the woman flashed in his mind again. Dennis felt a jarring, crunching sensation shoot up his right calf and thigh.

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‘Shame really,’ a skeleton thin man with tufts of even thinner white hair croaked from the corner (the name Headley leapt into Dennis’ mind – he knew the man was a Lord). ‘Things might have been so different had we gotten the launch off before them.’

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A few more nods of approval. By now everyone was sat comfortably. Townsend walked over to the safety security box whilst the banging at the door persisted. It was surprising how quickly Dennis had learnt to ignore it.

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The security box was not locked. Townsend swung open its heavy, wrought iron door and began dispensing clear plastic bottles of water. Everyone took a good drink gratefully. Dennis appreciated it after his quick, explosive sprint.

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The woman’s face again and the crackling sensation shooting up his leg. Dennis rubbed his face and chugged back more of the cool spring water.

Townsend produced a silver laptop from the security box and made his way to the last vacant seat in the room. He sat down slowly and took a drink before opening the laptop. Interior fans and processors whirled quietly as the laptop switched on.

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‘Our intel was good mind, that it would be a bio-chem attack. Can’t fault GCHQ, on that one. They assured us the bastards didn’t have nukes.’

A ripple of laughter spread around the room. The banging at the door was growing weaker with every thud.

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After a minute of quiet chatter, Townsend began typing away on the laptop.

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‘Right then,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Consultancy room 4A protocols are in effect. Everyone must enter their name and secure ID in the log box. We need all eight names to verify and approve a missile strike from the Neptune launchers.’ He slid the laptop over to the man on his right, who began tapping away obligingly.

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‘Once approval is completed the strikes will begin within thirty minutes.’

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 The laptop was passed from one man to the next. Dennis imagined the submarine launchers moving into position. He wondered if they knew what had happened, if they were ignorant of the millions dead or suffocating in the streets.

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The laptop came to him. There was no text or instructions on the screen, just a blank, grey square box with two rows of eight white cells. Some of the cells had been filled with the names and secure ID’s of the men sitting around the table. Dennis typed his in quickly and hit the enter key.

An error message appeared in bold red font. Dennis nearly had a heart attack.

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He keyed in his name and ID again whilst eyes around the table bore through his flesh and limp hands tried desperately to break down the air tight door from outside. Without eight names the missile strike couldn’t be approved. Worse (in Dennis mind at least) the consultancy room protocols wouldn’t be enacted, and no recovery team would ever be sent to rescue them. The eight men sat around the table, the lucky ones, would be trapped in room 4A. 

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The error message appeared again. Dennis began to type frantically.

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‘I don’t know why it won’t work. Why won’t this work!’

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The error message appeared over and over. Dennis felt his body and mind grow faint.

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‘Have you got the caps lock switched on?’ the man sat opposite Dennis asked quietly.

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Dennis looked down and saw the tiny light on the caps lock key. He typed in his details again, with the caps lock turned off. His entry was accepted immediately.

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‘Oh, thank God!’ Dennis sighed. He began laughing as the sudden terror faded away. ‘I thought we were in it then.’

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Laughter erupted around the table. The old man opposite piped up again. ‘Always happens to me don’t worry.’

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Dennis passed on the laptop and the men continued to enter their names one be one.  When it was all done, Townsend took the laptop and smiled.

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‘Right, message to Neptune operative.’ He spoke aloud as he typed in the details. ‘Chemical attack on the capital. Casualties unknown, further targets unverified. Aggressor identified as the Pan-Asian alliance. Use nuclear force on all designated strikes outlined in latest strike target debrief.’

Townsend glanced around the table. ‘Everybody happy?’

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Murmurs of approval. Townsend clicked send and waited a few minutes till a confirmation was returned. He smiled when it came through.

‘Consultancy room protocols enacted. Evac scheduled for thirteen hundred hours.’

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Dennis looked at his watch; they had forty-five minutes to wait.

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Townsend closed the laptop and walked back around the room to the safe box. ‘Messy business all of this,’ he said in theatrically grave tones. ‘Yet it’s happened, and it is our job, our duty, to the people who perished today that the correct course of action be taken.’

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Mutters of here, here and a few fists thudded on the table. Dennis realised the banging on the door had ceased completely.

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The woman’s face appeared in his mind again and he accepted it would be some time until he could forget her completely. It would be difficult – she was the one lying just outside the room, the one who had been banging on the door. One of the others had pushed her to the ground in the mad dash to get inside room 4A. Dennis had stepped on her as he’d come through the door. He’d needed to; only eight were allowed inside the room.

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He knew he’d crushed one or more of the woman’s ribs; the crunching sensation shooting up his leg would be harder to forget than the woman’s face itself.

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Townsend laid the laptop carefully down in the safety box and began pulling out breathing apparatus and protective eye masks.

‘We’ll need these when the evac team arrives. Just a pity we couldn’t have a cup of tea whilst we waited.’

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-End-

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This text may not be reproduced, copied or used without written permission from Sam Hurcom.