Part 2 -- The Assault on Satcom
It was nightfall over the once bustling city of Londinium as a helicopter swooped low over the silhouetted rooftops. The UN had started using London's Roman name several years earlier because they thought it sounded grand and authoritative. Upon entering the city, this grandeur quickly evaporated; with its population cut by nearly three-quarters and an acute shortage of qualified engineers, surveyors and builders, it was a shadow of its former self. Many of the great buildings stood in ruins and, those that remained, housed the poor, needy and destitute. Its famous streets were pot-holed, litter-strewn, and virtually empty.
The City of London, the historic core of the great metropolis, seemed curiously unaffected by the devastation surrounding it. This was the power base of the administration and, from this single square mile, they ruled the entire county with an iron fist. The UN Overwatch Committee, a ruthless police force with near-universal jurisdiction, was headquartered in an imposing structure once known locally as The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, or, more commonly, as the Bank of England. It was ideal for the Overwatch's nefarious purpose; built entirely of Portland stone and designed to be impregnable. It had no windows on the lower floors and the rooms were configured in a maze-like pattern to disorientate and trap would-be escapees.
In a small room on one of the lower floors of 'The Old Lady', Michael was laying, barely conscious, on a spartan bed with a wafer-thin mattress. As he stirred, trying to open his eyes, a female voice with a cut-glass British accent boomed out of a speaker above him.
"All prisoners will remain seated for inspection!"
It took a few moments for Michael to recall the events of the previous day. He cursed himself for being caught so easily and for giving up the information he should have protected with his life. He glanced around the room, relieved momentarily that he hadn't been tied to the bed but his head was pounding from the after-effects of the heavy dose of chloroform. The room's walls were padded and clinically white; there was a door opposite him and a flat-screen monitor positioned at the foot of his bed. Just where the hell am I, he thought.
He heard a mechanical lock rotate and slide along its barrel before the door to his chamber swung inwards, framing two women in the aperture. Both wore the familiar regalia of the Overwatch; a knee-length skirt and black halter-neck top emblazoned with a yellow serpent encircling a large, phallic-looking obelisk. The imagery wasn't exactly subtle but it had succeeded in becoming both feared and despised in equal measure. The two women were well trained and stared straight ahead until the tapping of heels on a bare floor announced the arrival of a third. They saluted as the footsteps approached and then stepped aside to allow a rotund figure in her early fifties to cross the threshold into the prison cell.
"Mr Tyson, I trust your new quarters are to your liking?" the woman croaked in mock concern. "I am Helana Solomon, Head Watchwoman and commander of this facility; you may address me as either 'Miss Solomon' or simply as 'ma'am'. I came down here to introduce myself in person before we move on to the main order of business."
Michael briefly surveyed the woman in front of him before responding. The first striking feature was her size; the monogender plague had shrunk the labour pool to such an extent that food shortages were common and gluttony almost non-existent. Strict rationing had helped fuel the rebellion in the early days of the UN government but was now so widely accepted that the sight of a corpulent person was rare indeed. She was dressed in a black suit, which exuded authority, and spoke with a confidence that suggested she was used to getting her own way.
"I don't care what you have to say, 'Helana', just get on with doing whatever it is you're going to do." Michael replied obstinately.
"For one so weak-willed, you have such defiance in your voice. I think I would have liked to have been there when they broke you."
"Well now I've met you, I can see why you sent Gisselle instead." Michael said with the slightest hint of a smile.
"Enough pleasantries," Helana snapped, "All Lev-1s believe they operate above the law and can't be touched but I'm given a great deal of flexibility in how I run the Overwatch. Simply put, I can make your stay here very easy or extremely uncomfortable. It's your choice."
"Go fuck yourself 'Miss Solomon'."
"That's the wrong answer Michael and, in time, your rebel friends will pay for it dearly. Not to mention the lovely Miss Anderson --"
"Michelle!" The pain in his head had forced her from his mind in the short time since his reawakening. The feelings he had towards her didn't make any sense; she had, after all, betrayed the rebels and put him in this situation. In that moment, though, all he longed for was to know that she was safe.
"It was a difficult decision for me to send such a young and delicate creature to a labour camp. I doubt she'll last more than a few months." Helana could read the pain on Michael's face and took a great deal of satisfaction from it. Gisselle had already spoken of the concern Michael showed towards her in the hotel room. It presented a weakness that Helana delighted in exploiting.
"Why would you do that? She was working for you." Michael stammered.
"No, she was a rebel, driven by base desires; I have no need of someone like that in my organisation."
"If I ever get out of here I'm going to find you and --"
"Careful, Mr Tyson, making threats in here is not advisable and my patience is wearing thin. I could arrange for you to have an 'accident' if you push me too far." Helana said menacingly.
"Well, perhaps there's another way I could convince you to let Michelle go?" Michael though it was worth a shot; it was a tactic that had worked for him in the past.
"My goodness, that is priceless!" Helana laughed mirthlessly. "I'm afraid that however appealing you may believe yourself to be, my interests lie...elsewhere." She gestured towards one of the guards standing at the door, "Besides, unlike most women you've met, I'm afraid you hold no mystique for me. I was thirty-five when the plague struck and I still remember a time when men had to do all the chasing. I'll forgive your ignorance as I'm sure you've never known anything different."
"Fine, can we cut the bullshit then? What, exactly, am I here for and what will it take to get Michelle and the other rebels released?" Michael asked decisively.
"Why the rush, I thought we were just getting to know each another? You'll have your answers soon enough, but first I would like to show you something." Helana moved towards the monitor at the foot of Michael's bed and pressed a button. The screen blinked a few times and then displayed a grainy image of the Overwatch's insignia. "I think you'll enjoy this; it's the rebel's ill-fated attempt to seize control of Satcom yesterday. None of what your about to see would have been possible without your assistance," her voice dripped with sarcasm. "Oh, and put these on," Helana handed Michael a pair of rose-tinted spectacles. The irony wasn't lost on him.
"What do they do?" he asked, eying them suspiciously.
"They're 3-D glasses; designed to enhance your viewing pleasure and, don't worry, I'll be wearing them as well." she removed a second pair from her jacket pocket and placed them carefully on the bridge of her nose. Michael reluctantly followed suit.
The screen, meanwhile, had come to life and displayed a crystal-clear image of what appeared to be a small warehouse or store room. It was so lifelike that Michael could almost reach out and touch the boxes stacked high against the grey interior wall. At one end of the room, a small lobby separated two sets of heavy-looking reinforced glass doors. Nothing happened for several minutes until the sound of hurriedly approaching footsteps punctuated the silence.
"The recording started at the point when Gisselle sent the fake 'go' signal; it gets interesting soon." Helana explained, though Michael had already guessed as much.
The footsteps died away; replaced by a loud thud as the outermost door was forced from its hinges. Several figures appeared in the cramped lobby area, though the Videolink's vantage point was such that it was impossible to discern who they were. After pausing for a short while and adjusting various dials on a handheld device, the electronically-assisted inner door yielded and slid back into recesses positioned on either side of the entrance.
"Alpha-one to nest: we're in, over?"
Michael had recognised the voice before its owner had even stepped into view. Katie Albarn was the second-in-command of the rebel's Midlands cell despite being only thirty years old. He could see her clearly now; her diminutive stature, strawberry-blonde hair and tiny frame masked a fierce intelligence. She, along with all other members of the resistance, wore a tight-fitting navy blue jumpsuit with a long zip on the front.
"Alpha-one...'crackle'...breaking up....'crackle'...interference on line...'crackle'...switch to alternative channel, over."
Katie paced nervously as she switched the communicator to the agreed back-up channel. Something's not right here; she thought Michael should be dealing with this.
The rest of the team slid into view as Katie struggled in vain to get a signal. Michael immediately recognised the other five rebels involved in the operation and a pang of guilt shot through him. He wanted to reach out and warn them but he knew it was too late and that he, alone, was responsible for what was about to happen.
"What's wrong? We need to get moving." said Aaron Donnelly.
Besides Michael he was one of only two other men in the Midlands cell. He was middle-aged but kept himself in good physical condition and often provided the muscle in operations such as this one. He had a swirl of cropped black hair, a neatly trimmed goatee beard, and pale skin festooned with tattoos. He was a Lev-3; one of the four designations created by the UN Administration Committee and applied to all men. It made him far less valuable than Michael because he was incapable of passing his immunity to the monogender plague to his children. Lev-3s were often kept as the playthings of those rich enough to afford them.
"I can't seem to get anything other than static on this damn thing. Overwatch must be running interference, which means they're on to us and we need to get out of here now!" Katie responded in with growing concern.
"There, uh, might be a problem with that Kay; look!" An attractive woman in her late twenties that Michael identified as Hannah McFarlane stood at Katie's side and pointed back towards the lobby. The inner doors were closed and a metallic roller-shutter immediately slammed down in front of them, barring their only means of escape. At the same time, artificial light flooded the room from several high-powered halogen bulbs set into the ceiling. This served to further enhance the high resolution images from the Videolink.
