Intercepting An Assassination

For several minutes, Casey holds Noah pinned on the roof. He doesn’t let Noah respond or yell out, his hands firmly clasped around his throat and on his mouth. Several times, Noah almost loses consciousness, but he fights to stay conscious.

Minutes later, he’s pulled up and thrown towards the door. As he stumbles to regain his footing, he looks for Hugo.

He’s not there.

The instant he realizes, he’s punched on the jaw and in the stomach. Aiden grabs him by the neck and marches him back into the building. They walk past Simon, who simply stands there with a displeased look on his face.

Noah looks to Simon for help, but he doesn’t say a word. He’s never truly cared about Noah in his entire life.

Aiden drags Noah to a room on the side of the warehouse. Inside, there’s a bathtub, a broken mirror, and a toilet. Light filters in between planks of wood plastered over the bathtub. Noah’s kicked inside, and he crumples to the floor.

Aiden towers above in the entryway, relishing in his power over Noah. He gives Noah an ultimatum:

“Their defense systems will come down again, and our bombers will be waiting. You’d better pick which side you wanna be on before that happens.”

On all fours, Noah crawls along the floor, pulling himself upright against the bath. He has no choice but to sit like this – the pain in his stomach is too much in any other position. He raises his hand to his mouth and brings it back so he can see it.

There’s blood on his fingertips. He can taste it, too. A lot of it.

After his heart stops racing and the full brunt of the pain settles in, he begins to sob. Hugging his shoulders, he gasps for air, convulsively but quietly.

Hugo was well within his grasp, but now he’s truly lost him.

* * *

As Hugo returns to the Capital, the sun peeks over the top of the skyscrapers. Today, it seems to peer cautiously, fearing the depressing sights between the metal structures.

Hugo doesn’t return home, but allows himself to wander the streets. He soon becomes lost. The whites of the sculptured structures, the natural greens, and the blues of the water and sky make him feel at peace. Even for someone who doesn’t get the appeal – and, quite frankly, can’t stand the thought – of living with nature.

He emerges into a wide street, lined with a river on each side. The buildings on the other side of the rivers are worn out. Some have slightly collapsed roofs, others have shattered windows. Further down the street, buildings are reduced to their foundations. Rubble blocks the canals and scatters the broken pavers.

This place looks like it had it even worse than the civic center.

Hugo walks up to a large tent by the side of the street. Two military hovercraft sit beside it. Military personnel stand on the other side of a fold-out table, pointing and instructing others. Lining up in front of the table, Hugo’s one of the only people in civilian clothing.

In a couple of minutes, he’s at the front. A girl with brown hair and a black bow, about Hugo’s age, sits at the table – Emily. She looks up from her silver pad. “Hugo! What are you doing here?”

“I… I want to help.”

Emily looks at him apprehensively for a moment before responding. “I’ll get you on rubble clean-up. Starting over there.”

She points to a spot not far from the tent, where bulky robots sift through and sort debris. Military personnel stand back and observe, next to a hovercraft with an open carrier.

“Okay.” Hugo hesitates for a second. “I mean… not just today.”

Emily leans back, placing both hands behind her head. “Huh. You want to join?”

“Yeah. How do I do that?”

“Our website. It’s still up, thankfully.”

The internet still works after the attack, but the connection’s somehow blocked to the outside world. Only New Kansai’s websites and decentralized social media platforms are accessible.

“Great, thank you.” Hugo nods his head.

Emily gives him a brief smile, perhaps tainted with a touch of pity. Then, she looks over Hugo’s shoulder and addresses the next person in line.

Hugo leaves the tent and approaches the clean-up team.

Military personnel hold controls, flying drones over the damage to assess it. They use earpieces – identical to the ones Eugene borrowed for their trip to the old world – to observe camera feeds from the drones, the data projected out in front of them.

A woman in military gear turns to him as he approaches. “Rubble clean-up?”

When Hugo nods, she takes a few paces to a pile of shovels, picks one up, walks back, and thrusts it into his hand. “There’s not much else you can do. Sorry.”

Hugo can’t help feeling a bit insulted, but she’s right.

“Just the stuff the robots can’t scoop up after they go through it. Like over there.” She points to a spot where a robot has just sifted through. A couple of military personnel scoop bits of small debris into a wheelbarrow.

Seeing military personnel doing the same task softens the blow a little bit. Hugo walks over to them and introduces himself. They look up, introduce themselves warmly, and get back to work. He copies them.

He breaks a sweat quickly, but his clothing keeps him cool. He scoops up clothing materials, broken pieces of wood, plant debris, and smashed glass.

After an hour of following around robots, shouts of “hey!” and “wait!” snaps him out of his flow. Several meters away, a robot halts sifting through the debris. Military personnel – including those around him – rush towards it.

It takes Hugo a couple of seconds to understand why – behind the robot, a human arm hangs from a pile of rubble. It’s dirty and lifeless.

Hugo’s heart begins thumping, even though there’s no danger. As they clear the rubble from around the arm, he can do nothing but stand and watch.

They pull out the person it’s attached to. Two military personnel carry a teenage girl past Hugo and towards the hovercraft. As they pass him, he notices a dent in the side of her head.

Still in shock, he stands there for a while after they’re gone, gazing at nothing. A hand grabs his shoulder and he spins around.

“Woah, easy.” The military woman jumps at his sudden movement. “Head back to the tent and take a break.”

Without a word, Hugo returns to the tent. In the carrier of the hovercraft – which he can see into now – small human-shaped mounds rest on the floor, covered in white sheets.

At the tent, someone offers him a bottle of water. He sits on a large case, taking big swigs of water. Some of it runs down his neck and onto his underclothing.

“We’re gonna need that now.”

Hugo looks up to see Emily standing above him. He gets off the case immediately.

Emily looks over at the hovercraft, then back to Hugo. “I’ll reassign you to food distribution with me.” She taps on his glass tablet. “Oh, and maybe rethink that military application.”

* * *

Hugo boards a hovercraft next to the tent. Several military personnel join him, sitting on seats along the walls of the carrier. In the middle of the carrier, robots load pallets of packaged food and water.

The flight is short, so Hugo doesn’t make the effort to speak to anyone. When the hovercraft lands, he unbuckles his seatbelt and follows everyone outside.

As he emerges into the light, the tarmac of a landing zone comes into view. Skyscrapers still surround them – an indication they’re still in the Capital.

Robots walk past them, into the hovercraft, and begin to unload the pallets. These robots are less bulky and more humanoid. Perfect for working with patients in a medical facility.

Once the pallets are unloaded, Hugo helps a robot push a pallet along the tarmac. They push it into the loading dock of a large building.

When everyone and all the pallets are inside, Emily stands up the front – tablet in hand – and addresses everyone. “Once we unwrap these pallets, please grab a crate. I’ve assigned you to a specific ward, so don’t mix-and-match with patients from other wards. Don’t forget – we’re a sign of strength. I’m sure it’ll increase their spirits, seeing us helping out.

As Emily presses a button on her tablet, Hugo’s watch buzzes. It displays: ‘C2’.

“Right, then. Let’s get to it!”

Hugo grabs a crate from the nearest pallet. It’s filled with apples and sandwiches in beeswax wrapping.

All of a sudden, he feels something placed on his head.

“Military cap.” Emily gives him a sly smile. “So you can’t take all the credit.”

Hugo takes an elevator up to the C2 ward. The doors open to a brilliant white hallway. It’s a different kind of white from the metal in the Capital – rather than looking natural, it’s much more sanitized. On each side, open doorways lead into the rooms of patients.

“Hello?” Hesitantly, Hugo walks into the room closest to him.

A man sits in a hospital bed, bandages around his neck and arm in a sling. He looks away from a glass TV to face Hugo.

“The military brought some food for you. ” Hugo sets the crate down on a table.

“Oh, excellent.” The man smiles. A tired smile. “That’s just wonderful.”

Hugo takes out a sandwich and an apple and delivers it to another table beside the man.

“It’s great that young people like you are part of defending our society,” the man says. “You remind me of when I was young.”

“Oh…” Hugo picks up the crate and gives him a strained smile. “Uh, thank you. Hope you’re well soon.”

Hugo walks back into the hallway. He repeats the same process, greeting patients in their rooms, giving them food, and ensuring he doesn’t get wrapped up in conversation and stays too long. He almost reaches the end of the hallway, and the end of the food in his crate.

He enters the room of an elderly lady. Although she looks unharmed, she turns to face him – the other side of her head is severely burned.

Hugo greets her. She simply nods slowly in return, pointing at her burn. It obviously hurts her to talk. He gives her a sandwich and an apple. As he turns to leave, he hears her voice:

“Aren’t you the son of a new Council member?”

Intrigued, Hugo turns back. “I am.” He just hopes she won’t apologize for Eugene’s death.

But she doesn’t. Instead, she points at the TV.

It’s a news channel with the headline: ‘Council member killed by assassination drone’. The headshot of a Council member is displayed on the screen, within live drone footage of a farmhouse.

Hugo’s throat tightens; where there’s one assassination attempt, there’s bound to be another. He quickly visits the last two rooms, a smile on his face but a sick feeling in his stomach.

After returning to the loading dock, Emily’s nowhere to be seen. He leaves her cap on one of the pallets, exiting the building in a rush.

As much as he didn’t want to be at home this morning, he now wishes he’d never left.

* * *

Phone in hand, Hugo runs along footpaths unaffected by the attack days earlier. In truth, taking a skybus would be the quickest way to his apartment complex, but he’d just missed one and wasn’t prepared to wait for another.

Dashing past confused civilians, still on alert for any potential signs of danger, he tries to call Lily on his phone.

No answer.

Hugo huffs, but he’s not any more anxious. After all, he knows Lily turns off her phone when working. He pictures her, sitting at her desk and typing away on her laptop. After all, there’s a lot of transport rerouting and infrastructure rebuilding to organize. And now that Lily’s part of the Council, she has to balance this work with her responsibilities as a Council member.

Hugo sends her several texts – in case she has her notifications turned on – but he’s unhopeful she’ll see them. He checks the map on his phone carefully, taking a turnoff into an enclosed walkway of white metal.

The metal walkways are shortcuts, elevating and lowering around the outdoor footpaths on ground level. Gardening robots do their best to maintain the greenery, even when the walkways travel underground and the LED lights also try their best to keep the plants alive.

Hugo takes another turnoff, exiting out into the open. Further down the street, his apartment skyscraper nestles proudly amongst the other buildings. It shoots up like a tall tree.

On top, wind turbines spin in the light breeze. As far as the engineers were concerned, the more energy it can generate, the better – a much different sentiment than those in the ecovillages live by.

He nears the building while panting immensely, lungs pushing hard against his ribcage. He runs up into one of the four entrances.

While doing so, he happens to look up. He spots a black drone hovering cautiously, scanning inside the windows. It slips in and out of the skyscraper’s exterior skin, as if searching for a target.

Hugo tries calling Lily again, but his shaking fingers tap the wrong buttons. Once he manages to find her contact and call the number, he lets it call to the answering machine.

By the time it’s rung out, he’s through the entry of the building, running past shoppers. There aren’t many people enjoying days out after the bombing, but he still has to push a couple people out of his way.

He reaches the elevator and mashes the glass button with his floor number. Luckily, it doesn’t stop until it reaches his floor. He scans his wrist on the door scanner to his apartment. The scanner beeps once, flashing green, and he pushes the door open.

The walls of the apartment are ridden with bullet holes. The wide window on the outside of the building is completely shattered, with shards of glass covering the floor.

In the middle of the living room, Lily stands, propping herself up with a wooden baseball bat. Resting at her feet, the shattered remnants of a black drone twitch for a second before becoming still. Its machine gun component is twisted and broken.

Lily locks eyes with Hugo. They stare at each other, both heaving for air. Then, they run for each other, embracing in a fierce hug.

“Are you okay?” Hugo asks, his voice croaky.

“Yeah, where’ve you been?”

Hugo pulls away. “Helping the military with cleanup. I saw the other attempt on the news.”

“I’m just lucky I heard it smash the window.” Lily trods on the body of the drone. She’s lucky she’s such a skilled fighter. She then fully realizes what Hugo’s said. “You haven’t joined the military, have you?”

Hugo’s lost for words.

“Please, Hugo. Don’t put yourself in any more danger, okay? After Eugene…” She trails off, blinking heavily and looking around the room.

“Mom… It’s not just Eugene.” Hugo grits his teeth. “I saw some of the people affected by what happened. I wanna make sure it never happens again.”

The drone’s black metal is the same material as the one used in aircraft and humanoid robots from that fateful day. Hugo’s sure of it.

The perpetrators of the assassination must still be in New Kansai. If they weren’t, the drone couldn’t possibly know who to target and where they could be.

Eugene’s death might’ve been the result of both attacking and defending forces, but now the attackers have brought the fight right into Hugo’s home.

And he won’t easily let that go. At least, not without them facing the consequences.