The Great Game

“You have to get back to DSP, sir. Urgently. There’s been an explosion.”

I stared at him.

“They told me you needed to hurry. I don’t have any details. I’m sorry.”

I shook my head. An explosion. My head felt like it was stuffed with sand. “What about this mess?”

“Someone is sending a team to collect it.”

“I see.”

I tried to pull myself together. An explosion at the office had to be an attack of some sort. And there was the comms silence, too… I shook my head. After the day I’d had, it felt like absolutely anything could be going on back there. Caution seemed sensible.

“Alright,” I said. “I’m on my way. I’ll need a full report on this scene, everything from the person who called it in through to wherever the bodies end up. What’s your name, officer?”

“Mortimer. We’re based at Cadogan Place.”

“Gotcha. Good luck.”

I sprinted back to my pod, and told it take me back to the office. No sense logging a deviating route plan. I sped off down Devonshire. A pair of anonymous grey APCs thundered past, making for the Cadogan Place people. The pick-up team had obviously been sent by someone heavy. With luck, they’d just take the whole thing over.

As the pod got close to the office, I told it to pull up on the far side of James Park, and then powered it down completely. My blank glasses were in the door pocket, and I looked at them for a long moment, then pulled them on. I felt ridiculously paranoid… but I also felt safer.

I left the pod, and headed for the archway into the park. The park’s scanners tried to identify me, found the glasses, and promptly forgot I was there. I started making my way towards the gate near the office. It was getting late, but it was a mild enough night, and there were a few people around. I kept my head down and stomped along the path impatiently, but slowly enough not to attract attention. Just another tired business guy taking a short cut.

It took about five minutes to walk through the park. As I cleared the last stand of trees, I looked across at the office, and stopped dead.

It was gone.

The whole fucking building was gone.

I stared at the hole dumbly. A moment later, I realised I couldn’t hear any sirens. No flashing lights, either. No hubbub. No news skycams. Nothing.

Before I knew it, I was back in the trees, pressed against a rough trunk, the blood pounding in my ears. I peered back round the tree trunk and through the foliage, hoping crazily that I’d been mistaken somehow. The hole where the office should have been gaped back at me like a missing tooth.

I was still gazing at it dumbly a couple of minutes later when I heard a commotion start up ahead. A long moment later, a suited figure shot through the gate ahead, running flat out towards the trees. It was a bit too far to tell for sure, but it looked like a slender red-headed woman.

A couple of seconds later, she was followed by two people in peculiar environment suits. The suits were white, with odd distended rings at the wrists and neck, and near-spherical helmets. I’d never seen anything like them before. The pair stopped, raised weapons, and fired before I could even shout a warning.

Twin blaster flashes cut through her, and she collapsed, limbs flailing. I winced, crouched down instinctively, and tried not to think about Carrie Ransom being a slim red-head. The suited figures walked up to the corpse, grabbed a leg each, and casually dragged the body back the way they’d come.

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Today’s picture is Lund City Park by Pica.