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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Free Book

  Metal

  Are you a Survivor?

  About the Author

  Metal

  Copyright © 2017 by Thomas Hall

  The rights of Thomas Hall to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are ficticious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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  THE LAST MAN ON EARTH HAS COMPANY

  He has been alone since she died. Since they all died.

  He wants to believe that there are other people out there, but the evidence suggests that isn't the case. He comes to accept that he is the only one left, until the morning when he wakes up to find that it has snowed and there are footprints outside his window.

  He follows them in the hope of finally finding other people like him, but the longer the chase goes on, the more he questions what he is seeing and his own sanity.

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  CHAPTER 1

  DUST FELL FROM THE CEILING AS THE GROUND shook. Brett pulled up his hood and hoped that nothing more substantial would come down on him. He could hear a woman muttering soothing words to a baby which wouldn’t stop crying. The electric lights strung around the walls flickered as power surged through them.

  Another deep boom sounded and he braced himself. The fighting must be above them now. The only thing that could make the situation worse was if the Machines found their way into the tunnels.

  He knew that he was kidding himself if he thought they couldn’t do it. The Machines knew where they were, even if no one else wanted to believe it. The only reason any of them were still alive was because they weren’t important enough to kill. A status which might change at any moment.

  The baby continued to cry and he tried to remember who the mother was. There were a lot of women the right age, but he couldn’t remember seeing a child amongst them. It wasn’t only the mother whispering to the baby now, he could hear other voices, a low murmur that might be singing.

  He crawled to the edge of the hole where he slept and looked out at the rest of the group.

  More than two-hundred people called the tunnels home and Brett knew the names of ten of them. He didn’t recognise the small group standing on the platform, but that didn’t mean anything. People came and people went, he didn’t bother to learn who they were. He counted six and the baby made seven. They were moving around in a sort of dance.

  “It’s okay, shhh, shhh, shhh, it’s okay,” one of them sang, presumably the mother, although who knew anymore.

  He watched them while the fighting continued overhead. He wondered how many Resistance fighters were being killed while he hid. They didn’t stand a chance against the Machines, but they kept on fighting. Sooner or later they would all end up hiding like him, if they were lucky enough to stay alive.

  Brett shuffled back into his hole and reached for a bottle of water. His supplies were getting low, but it would be suicide to go looking for more while the fighting was so close. If the Machines picked up his movement they might think he was an enemy soldier and send a drone to look for him.

  He sipped from the bottle and then put it to the back of the hole. The only thing he could do was wait and hope that it didn’t go on for much longer.

  CHAPTER 2

  A KLAXON SOUNDED AND HE SAT UP. HE almost smacked his head on the low ceiling. He hadn’t been asleep, but it startled him.

  Brett slid to the edge of his hole again and looked out. There were new lights and more people. They were massing together on the platform.

  “Come on,” Samuel shouted. “Everyone gather around, we don’t have much time. Don’t worry about your things, we need to hurry.”

  Brett didn’t move. He watched the people and tried to work out what was going on. The fighting seemed to have stopped, but the electric lights continued to flicker.

  “Keep moving,” Samuel shouted. “We need to clear the area.”

  He swung his legs over the edge and dropped down to the platform. People moved past him without paying attention. The ground was thick with dust and more fell as he stood there. Brett brushed it out of his hair.

  They started to move.

  Brett moved with them.

  He kept near the back so that no one would notice him.

  Samuel led them to the edge of the platform and down onto the tracks. The ancient stones shifted beneath him as he began to walk.

  Nobody spoke unless it was essential. It was a mistake to think that their silence would keep them safe but it was how Brett knew that this wasn’t a drill. Whatever threat Samuel thought they were facing was very real.

  He could see Samuel’s torch up ahead and a hundred dark shapes between him and it.

  Brett followed them because he had nowhere else to go. He let himself fall further back.

  Sometimes he wondered why he stayed with the group. Most days he had little to do with any of them, he could go a week without speaking. But there was still something to be said for company. He could only imagine how lonely it would be to live without seeing or hearing other people nearby.

  They walked for more than an hour. Some people started to talk, but disapproving looks from the others soon made them stop. Then they were only trudging through the soot black tunnels in silence.

  Brett turned when he heard a whisper behind him. Without thinking about it he reached for the Blaster that he no longer carried.

  Unarmed, he turned but saw nothing there. He stared into the darkness while the final few members of the group pushed past him.

  The platform they arrived at was like the one they had left behind. A little older, a little less filled with the debris of human occupation, but that would change in time. Brett sat with his back against the wall. The others gathered around the singular light held by Samuel.

  “We received an alert from another cell,” Samuel said. A cell was what he called the other groups who lived in the tunnels. A cell was also how the Resistance squads referred to one another. “The Machines penetrated the tunnels at Waterloo.”

  A woman gasped.

  “We’re going to lay low for a while,” Samuel continued. “It’s not clear what their purpose is, hopefully they aren’t looking for survivors.”

  Why would they look for survivors? Brett wondered. Unless they’d beaten the Resistance, unless the war was over.

  “It’s not going to be easy,” Samuel continued. “We’re not going to have any light and we won’t be able to make much noise. But we’ll get through it, I promise.”

  It wasn’t a promise he could keep. If the Machines were looking for them, they would find them. But, as far as Brett could see, there was no reason to believe that the Machines were in the tunnels. If they were, then they would already be dead.

  “Find somewhere to put your things and try to get some rest. I’ll be putting together a team to go and get water,” Samuel said.

  That was Brett’s cue to back away. He didn’t want someone to ask him to help, he didn’t want to have to turn them down.

  He found an alcove at the far end of the platform. He spread out his camping mat and lay down, there was nothing to do now e
xcept wait.

  CHAPTER 3

  SAMUEL RUBBED HIS FACE AND FELT A COUPLE of days’ worth of stubble under his fingers. They sat in darkness, but he didn’t need to see them to know who was there.

  “Thoughts?” he said.

  “Are they really in the tunnels?” Victoria said. She was sitting to his right, clutching her sister Elizabeth.

  Samuel sighed. “I don’t know. There was a breach, but it might just have been from the fighting. We don’t know that they’re looking for us.”

  “We need to assume the worst,” Elizabeth said. She was the younger sister but more able to look the horrors of war in the face.

  “Agreed,” Samuel said. “So we need a plan.”

  “Return to the surface?” Ben suggested. He was sitting to Samuel’s left, the youngest member of his advisory council.

  “If we do that they’ll treat us like hostiles,” Elizabeth said. “They’ll kill us before we even get out of the station.”

  “Not if we hide,” Ben said.

  Samuel shook his head, but it was too dark for any of them to see him.

  “We can’t hide,” Elizabeth said. “They’ll be waiting for us.”

  “What if we create a distraction?” Ben said.

  “We’re not leaving the tunnels,” Samuel said.

  They fell silent.

  “We need to get food and water,” Samuel said. He turned towards where he knew Ben was sitting. “Ben, can you organise a team?”

  “Sure,” Ben said.

  “Where’s he supposed to get food and water?” Elizabeth said.

  “He can go back to the old camp, there’s plenty of stuff left behind. Then out to the reservoir when we start to run low.”

  “What about the Machines?” she said.

  Samuel shrugged. He didn’t like this any more than she did, but they weren’t exactly overwhelmed with choices. If they didn’t get food and water, then it wouldn’t matter whether the Machines found them or not. “It’ll be fine if they’re quick and careful,” he said.

  “And what are we supposed to do in the meantime?” Richard said. He was sitting on the far side of the circle, opposite Samuel. If he had a second in command, then in was Richard.

  “Keep everyone together and don’t let them panic,” Samuel said.

  “We need to send someone to the surface,” Richard said.

  “You know we can’t—“

  “We can do whatever we want,” Richard said, cutting him off. “What about Brett, we could send him?”

  “He wouldn’t go,” Samuel said.

  “You could make him,” Richard said.

  “And how exactly am I supposed to do that?”

  “You’re in charge. Tell him he’s going or we’ll kick him out. It’s not like we’ll miss the selfish prick.”

  “That’s not fair,” Samuel said. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he found himself wondering why he was protecting Brett.

  In truth, Brett was selfish. He didn’t help with group activities. He fetched his own water and his own food. He did his own cooking. He even slept alone in his little hole, so his body heat didn’t benefit them. He didn’t contribute anything to the group, but that wasn’t the point. One day they might need him.

  “We’re not sending anyone to the surface,” he said.

  “Then how are we supposed to find out what’s going on? Do you want us to sit here and wait for the Machines to come and get us?”

  “No,” Samuel said. “That’s not what I want.”

  He could sense something dangerous in the air. The group didn’t have an appointed leader, so there would be no need to overthrow him. But if people stopped doing what he told them it would be the same thing. And if they started listening to Richard or Elizabeth, the whole group might fall apart.

  “We’ll send a team into the tunnels, see if we can find another cell and ask them what’s going on,” he said.

  “And when they tell us they don’t know anything either?” Richard said.

  “Then we’ll reconsider our options.”

  “Who are you going to send?” Elizabeth said.

  “I’ll ask for volunteers,” he said. “Brett might step up.”

  Richard snorted derisive laughter and Samuel couldn’t blame him. There was no way that Brett would put himself forward.

  “What about the Resistance?” Victoria said. She spoke in such a small voice that Samuel almost missed it.

  “What about them?”

  “They might have been hurt. We should send someone up to see if we can help.”

  “They’ll be fine,” Samuel said. “There’s probably an Evac team on the way already. We’d only be in the way.”

  She mumbled something that he didn’t make out and he didn’t bother asking her to repeat it.

  Samuel sent them away and then went to find a place to rest.

  CHAPTER 4

  THE GREY SKY FLASHED AND RIPPLED AS A noise that sounded like thunder shook the ground. An insectile buzzing filled the gaps between sonic booms. Brett perched at the window of an abandoned book store. He tried to work out which direction the Buzzards were coming from.

  “Anything Sarge?”

  Brett turned around. Dina was standing behind him, burned books fluttered in the breeze around her ankles. “They’re out there,” he said.

  “You want us to do anything?” she said. “Jake and Seth are only looking at the porn, I can get them doing perimeter duty.”

  “It’s art,” Brett said, turning back to the window.

  “What is?” she said.

  “The books. They’re art, not porn.”

  She shrugged. “Bare tits and arses, looked like porn to me.”

  Brett wondered if this was the way the world was now. He was old enough to remember a time before the war, when there was room in life for art. Dina was ten years younger than him. A minor difference in the old world, now it was as if they came from different planets.

  “Get them on perimeter duty,” he said. “No one’s to engage until I give the order. Understood?”

  “Yes sir,” she said.

  Brett listened to her walk away and then turned his attention back to the world outside. Now he could hear the heavy mechanical thud of the Droids marching. Whatever was in this town, the Machines wanted it. They were sending more Drones than any of them would know how to deal with.

  He kept watch until it started to get dark. He put down his visor and the world became a green blur.

  His legs were stiff after the extended period spent crouching at the window. Dina hadn’t been back, and no one else from the squad had come in. He wasn’t worried; he could smell meat burning close by and hear the mutter of laughter.

  Brett found them on the ground floor, in what had been a storage room. The books were gone from there as well. He coughed and rubbed smoke from his eyes. The laughter stopped.

  Dina appeared before him like a ghost from the smoke. “I told them to light the fire,” she said. “Do you want us to put it out?”

  He shook his head. “Leave it until you’ve finished cooking, then we’ll get rid of it.”

  “I saved you a seat,” Dina said.

  He followed her over to the fire. Two dozen men and women crouched on the floor around the flames. They had built a tepee skeleton and a pot was hanging from it. They hadn’t brought any of it with them. They were resourceful enough to find what they needed where they needed.

  Brett sat next to Dina and felt her squeeze his hand. In the dark no one could see them. He squeezed her hand back.

  The laughter returned.

  Martin served the stew in bone china bowls that Ashleigh had found in a department store. Jake and Seth had found bottles of cheap cider in a bombed-out supermarket. While they ate, Penny told them about the time her mother had taken her on holiday to France. That had been a rarity, even in Brett’s childhood. Why bother travelling when virtual tours were available? They were cheaper, better for the environment and you always got go
od weather.

  They left the bookshop for the department store across town. Ashleigh had wedged the electric doors open earlier in the day. Seth closed them as they filed into the perfume section. All the displays and counters were empty now, but it still smelled of flowers.

  There was no light but they all had night-vision goggles. They dragged their equipment through the narrow aisles. They climbed the dead escalators.

  According to the sign there was a home furnishing section on the fourth floor, where they hoped to find beds.

  Dina walked beside him. He felt her hand touching his as their arms swung. He wasn’t sure whether she was doing it on purpose. If they bunked together it wouldn’t be the first time, but it would be unprofessional of him to take the lead.

  On the top floor, they pushed their way past curtains and lampshades and found the beds. There were six of them and for a while they stood looking at them in awe. Brett hadn’t slept in a bed since the Academy three years ago. Since he’d been in the field, he’d had nothing but hard ground beneath him.

  “We’ll take four shifts,” he said. Which meant they would all get a bed when their turn came, even if some of them chose to share. “Two hours each in a bed, then another two on the floor. The other four hours are on watch.”

  Some of them grumbled. They would have preferred to draw straws. He wanted everyone to enjoy the comfort though.

  “There’s plenty of other stuff to make the floor comfortable. There’s cushions and duvets. Now who’s first?”

  They sorted themselves into groups without him needing to get involved. He found himself on the first four-hour watch.

  The floor became quiet as the first shift climbed into their beds. The other half of the shift made themselves comfortable on the floor. Brett made his way back towards the escalators.

  There were no windows in the department store and that made him uncomfortable. He didn’t like not knowing what was happening outside. He wanted to get another look at the town and put some salt on his engagement strategy.