Chapter 2 - Friday 16th April 1993
"Can't this fucking tin can go any faster?"
The van glances off a kerb, sending Maria flying towards the computer desk.
"Better my dear?" comes the reply from the front.
She mutters curses under her breath as she unsteadily reclaims her seat and finally decides to fasten herself in. She doesn’t look at anyone else.
A tight corner makes me slide forward in my seat, the harness digging into my pecs so hard I can almost feel it. I settle back, rubbing my chest and look around to distract myself from the stunt driving.
Despite The Pulse team van actually being a large converted security truck the four of us in the back are strapped into slim racing-car style seats packed into the smallest space possible by the rear doors, two either side. I have to sit in these like a child trying to hide in plain sight: thighs pressed tightly together, shoulders rolled forwards and squeezed in, hands in my lap holding my mask, all to give Inna next to me enough room to sit normally. Not that I think anyone would ever complain but I don’t want to be ‘that guy’ taking up somebody’s armrest space on the train with my bulk.
Other than the four of us, the rest of the back is taken up with computers, miscellaneous rescue equipment, gadgets and bits of hardware I’ve never managed to identify, all either strapped to the walls, fixed to shelves or jostling around in storage containers. Spare costume pieces for all of us hang on two poles jutting out from the wall separating us from the driver’s cab, their thin plastic covers making static as they crinkle against each other. Underneath them are a rack full of boots and shelves holding several sets of night vision goggles, gloves and face masks.
Screws and fixings complain loudly as the truck bounces over speed humps while upturned rainbows of wiring and a collapsible plastic nozzle swing from the ceiling. Irregular black shadows cut through the blue gloom from the monitors, the only light in the rear.
A stack of white medical stretchers rasp against each other next to Maria's ear, making her pale face tighten more and more with each jerk of the van. She is staring at the computer screen diagonally opposite her with a look of grim attention as her black long bob swings side-to-side. In fact as The Black Witch her costume is entirely black: dress, shoes, choker and jewellery, so much so that in the near darkness of the van she looks like a white mask and set of four mannequin limbs dangling off the wall.
I try to catch her eye but her gaze doesn’t alter. She is always so serious while on a mission, so utterly focused it’s like she’s switched personality with a Marine.
Mitchell sits next to her, a figure not much bigger than Maria, a skinny lad of nineteen dressed in a loose-fitting custom-made dark blue top and pants, a silver electric bolt symbol affixed prominently on his chest. We’re still ten minutes away from the scene but he already has his helmet on, painted blue like his top, with his goggles flipped down. Looks like he’s sweating. Kid still has a lot to learn about the practicalities of going on missions. To be fair he only joined us a few months ago and still needs to learn these things for himself.
He sits as far away from any electrical equipment as possible, his electric charge ability making him a liability around sensitive equipment. He has already fried seven Mega Drives and two microwaves since he started. His seat in the van is a specially earthed one, just in case. As always he seems anxious to be somewhere else, repeatedly whipping his head round to crane out the rear door window and absent-mindedly shooting sparks between the fingers of opposite hands like a ghostly cat's cradle.
Next to me, outline etched in blue monitor glow, sits Inna, hands up at her shoulders holding the harness straps like a parachutist about to leap to her doom. She is expressionless. She blinks infrequently and when she does, slowly. Our stoic Ukrainian blonde goddess, she’s the only one in the team other than Jack who can get away with wearing skin-tight spandex, the figure-tightening white and gold leotard costume with matching knee-high boots not leaving much to the imagination. Naturally this has made her a paparazzi magnet, which she seems typically impassive about.
I did try a spandex version of my costume but Maria said that seeing me move in it was like watching two pit bulls wrestling in a sleeping bag. Not an image the team wanted to plant in the public's mind. After that it was back to the comfy cotton two-piece and waistband. Tan and dark brown. Not the nicest of colours, but the cheapest when it came to making my own when I was solo. I had hoped for a redesign after joining the team, something flashier, but instead I got a better quality version of the same thing. Something about keeping my hero identity consistent. Still wish it wasn’t brown.
Something squeaks incessantly near the front of the van. If it’s bugging me I know Maria will be ready to murder someone by the time we get there.
"You OK?" I say to Inna.
Don’t know why I just said that. Desperate to listen to anything but this van shaking itself to pieces I guess.
Not sure she hears me, but it was just a pause before she slowly turns her head.
"Yes."
Even that single word is smothered in a thick accent. She turns back and adjusts her hands on the straps.
“Good. No, that’s good.” I nod slowly.
Maria is staring at me. I try to shrug, but the seat and straps constrict me and I end up hunching forwards like I’m gently retching. She blinks and looks at the screens again. Suddenly she and Mitchell slide forward, straining into their straps. Maria gasps out loud and Mitchell lets loose a small burst that briefly lights up the rear doors.
"Fucking hell!" screams Maria when she gets her lungs back.
A beeping from the computer suddenly makes her alert. She pops her straps and leaps over to the empty chair in front of the screens. Her black dress expands in the air and suddenly lights up, black sequins scattering bright monitor-blue sparks of light around the cabin, black silk seams and edgings curling like eels in the gloom. She firmly plants herself in the seat and secures herself in.
"OK, we've finally got a link to the drone we sent off before we left."
She hammers at the keyboard and goes to grab the mouse only to find it’s hung itself over the edge of the desk by it's own cord. She snatches it up and slams it on the desk.
Inna has bent her head forward for a look so I have to strain the straps and tilt my head to get a look at the furthest of the three screen setup, angled more-or-less towards me.
A fuzzy black moving picture appears. Streaks of light pass from one corner to another. White, orange, red, white. Strange patterns, rectangles, a Tetris nightmare. Maria is cursing about the zoom function not working when she hits the right command and within seconds the night-time cityscape comes into view.
The drone is hovering over the Mellfields area of the city, just south of the river before the main centre. High-rise flats pass beneath it, then shops, rows of older houses, cars darting about at grid-angles. South Bridge is lit up yellow and looks like a cardboard cutout pasted over the inky river beneath it. Then blackness as all it shows is water.
"Oh for fuck's sake." Maria is glued to the screens. "We need a faster drone. We'll be there before that fucking thing arrives."
"Only by account of my astounding driving!" calls Charles.
We’re all staring at the screens. Still black.
This is the worst bit. When you’re about to find out what you’re up against and in this hanging moment it could literally be anything. In seconds you’re going to have to assess the situation and work out a plan because you’re going to be there in minutes. I can hear Mitchell mouthing “Come on, come on…”
Still black. Only the occasional white snaking ripple of water breaks the darkness. Then all at once, a river boat burns next to it's moorings, Fletcher Drive is covered in debris but no movement, a joining road empty also, an orange vein cutting between the black meat of the city. Then the drone breaks over the main square and Inna gasps. Police cars are scattered, some overturned and burning. Officers on foot, officers on horses
, all seemingly in disarray, suddenly run in a group. Riot police with shields hold a line while a barrage of people slam into them, the line collapses, trampled on. Then the swarm of people just as quickly, and bizarrely, move back like a wave being sucked back out to sea. Then Maria has to zoom the camera out even further.
"Oh fuck."
Chaos. Swarms of people run in groups, break apart, reform like split mercury. One blob splits off to slam into a bus stop. Glass smashes, people tumble and become trapped and squashed under it as the weight of bodies uproots it from the pavement. Then the group urgently changes direction as a canister of tear gas lands next to it. It moves right over it and moments later the canister arcs back towards a huddle of officers hiding behind a police van on it’s side. Other groups slam their bodies into shop frontages, giant windows collapse into waterfalls of glass. An explosion. The petrol tank of a car has ruptured. People are thrown back, some on fire. They all pick themselves up and start running again. The burning ones push to the front where they leap on a car trying to three-point turn it's way out of trouble. They smash in the windscreen and pile on the driver. Two passengers jump out but are forced back in by the throng. The inside of the car is alight.
As the drone reaches it’s pre-programmed destination and starts doing an orbit around the square, I can see more people moving down side streets – some are being chased, some run to join the crowd.
"What the hell is going on? Those people are on fire you know? It’s like they don’t care!" Mitchell's face is pale behind his goggles.
Maria studies the scene intently.
"This is definitely a psychic phenomenon. Vincent? What are you getting now?"
"A headache." comes another voice from the front. "I've never felt anything like this before. It's a force of will covering the centre of the city like an iron blanket. Incredible."
"Is this The Controller?"
"If it is he... aah... he's more powerful than any of us reckoned him to be. I'm seeing those same pictures you are. There must be hundreds of people in his thrall, with more joining all the time. I'm trying to keep us all psychically shielded but there is so much background noise from this it's... a struggle."
"You have to keep us safe Vincent, otherwise we're all completely fucked."
"Don't worry..." a whimper "I know all too well..."
“You’ll do fine by us buddy, don’t worry.” I call. He doesn’t reply. I know he’s trying to concentrate.
Without warning the radio bursts into noisy clicks and crackles, making me wince.
"Pulse to team, rendezvous at the corner of Passmore Road and Element Park. The police have set up an Emergency Incident Area there. I have new information, we need to update our plan. Over."
Maria immediately hits the reply button. "OK, en route. Five minutes. Over."
"Element park it is!"
Charles brakes hard and filters down a side-street. He flicks a switch and the siren drowns out all other noise. A relief in one sense. We hurtle between parked cars, inches either side. The movement of the van is more erratic now and I can hear Charles muttering under his breath.
"Getting busy up ahead. I think we’re going to have to go the wrong way across Heroes Bridge."
“Right… what?” says Maria.
Too late. I hear car horns as we cut between traffic islands into oncoming traffic, then we’re onto the bridge. Looking out the back I see the tail end of a large queue on the Northbound side
“Are you fucking insane?”
“I’m perfectly sane my dear, less vehicles this side, although they are travelling a mite faster…”
We suddenly swerve across lanes and leave cars braking slightly sideways in our wake.
“Shiiit, this is like some action movie yeah? The good guys racing to the scene you know?”
“Hah! That's the spirit my lad!”
“Except they usually get there alive don’t they?”
“And this isn’t a fucking action movie!”
“Well I can turn back and wait politely in the queue until the riot is finished sometime early tomorrow morning but I thought expeditiousness was…” swerve, a car horn changes tone as it goes past us “…called for given the circumstances.”
Maria mutters curses louder. She knows she can’t argue the point and stares at the screen instead, blinking her frustration out.
The wires of the bridge whizz past, orange streaks against a velvet purple sky. Sliding pairs of red lights bend around us. I’m steadily hypnotised by them as the wailing siren fades from my attention.
Abruptly, the bright orange glow of the bridge falls away from us as we hit land again. Out the back windows I see pedestrians scatter in all directions as we jump a crossroads. Some are running full pelt on their own, some in pairs or small groups holding on to one another. An old man clutched his head, blood on his face. A crying boy stumbles around confused.
"Ah shit man, this is well fucked up." says Mitchell, face screwed up with worry.
He’s bricking it. The last thing we want is him electrocuting civilians in a panic. Need to keep the kid grounded. Routine. These missions are all about routine.
"Don't worry Mitchell." I tell him "We'll meet with Jack, find out from the police what the situation is, where we're needed and what we need to do. Trust me, when we have a plan the fear will go. It's just that first leap into the unknown that gets your guts twisting about."
Mitchell looks at me, forces a smile and creates a tiny electricity ball between his hands.
"Don't worry about me man, I'm well ready you know?"
Even with the jostling of the vehicle I can tell he’s shaking. I smile back.
“I know. You’ll be fine.”
We take a few corners sharply, slowing down more and more as the streets become busier with people coming in the opposite direction.
"Almost there!" shouts Charles from up front as he turns another bend. "Oh fuck me."
The van comes to a halt.