BLUEMANTLE by Karen Langston (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud TXT) 📕

He cursed under his breath, knowing he would not be able to swerve the order again.

–

Meanwhile, across the city, his qualified Allears listened. They crouched beside whisper dishes, or held their heads to walls, splayed fingers feeling for vibrations. They were trained to control their heart rate, slowing it down to an idle tick-over so their rhythm-section pulse did not interfere with detection. Blank faces froze in concentration. The sockets beneath their sealed eyes were miniature swallow holes, draped in shadow.

Dent knelt beside the outer wall of a blast furnace in Coxen Lyme, struggling to quell his racing heart. Fresh intel had provided a solid lead. Now, the enormity of the situation had escalated beyond compare.

Wulfwin had just radioed him. The initial rumour had been substantiated.

A sleeper in the field had made contact. Details correlated. Date and time. The only missing piece of intelligence was where.

Dent could not recall an opportunity so vital, so pivotal to achieving the ambition of Governor Blix. He bowed his head, closed his eyes and listened.

–

On the Pentagon, Wulfwin marched between files of men, dour-faced and glaring. “Where the fuck have you been?” he boomed at a trooper who came running towards him.

“The Complex, sir. Technical problem with the transmitters. Had to speak to Telecoms Division to alter the frequency.”

“You’re fucking joking, right?”

“No, sir. But it’s sorted now.”

“The first corroborated lead in decades and Telecoms cock up the radios. How are we supposed to know if the Allears hear anything?”

The man cowed. “As I said, sir. All sorted now.”

“It’d better be.” He grabbed hold of the man’s collar, all but lifting him off his feet. “I’m holding you responsible for this. If something goes wrong with the radios, it’s your fucking fault.” He let go and pointed ahead. “Now, get in line. We’re supposed to be ready to move the moment we get the signal. And put your ear defenders in position, unless you want to lose your mind to the sodding freak show.”

The trooper took a pair of modified military-grade ear defenders from around his neck and clamped them onto his helmet, directly above his ears. The ear defenders were the single most crucial piece of their armour. The Rideout Rebellion had demonstrated that no amount of loyalty or training could protect the military and police from the influence of the music. Hence their name. The Deaf Squad were the only unit in Special Forces sufficiently protected to storm an event and emerge unscathed.

The men, around two hundred in total, stood to attention, defenders clamped just above their ears. Their bodies were rigid, their grim expressions motionless. Only their eyes moved, watching the brooding figure of their leader march back and forth.

Finally, Wulfwin came to a halt and faced his men. All eyes shot forward, staring at nothing.

“Soldiers of the Deaf Squad,” he roared, “tonight is your time to shine. All your years of training have been for this moment. If we succeed in our mission, this may well be your swansong. Be hungry for the glory and turn that hunger into rage. The Music Makers have mocked the rule of the Authority for too long. They have flouted the laws set down to safeguard the vulnerable citizens of Wydeye. Our duty is to protect. To protect is to destroy that which threatens harm. We will capture the Music Makers and eradicate the Scene. There are no limits to the efforts to which we will go to achieve this end. No boundaries are deemed too sacred to cross. Reasonable force means the necessary force to succeed. Therefore, relish your rage. Let it rumble in your chest – a pressurised fury fit to explode. Then unleash it upon those bastards who challenge our rule and threaten our peace. Be ready, my men. Our time is nigh.”

Chapter Eight

Klaxons blared like air-raid sirens. Dust-covered and lead-limbed, Chase joined the file of weary drillers and blast hands as they shuffled to the convoy of trucks that would ship them from the quarry, back to Coxen Lyme and the tramway stop at Ulden Cross. Dirt clung to their sweat-drenched bodies. Lungs, desperate for clean air, ached under the weight of humidity. No one said a word.

Chase had worked twelve hours with a half-hour break. His body felt bruised and broken, yet his mind raced. In a few hours’ time, he would be meeting Ursel and they’d be making their way to the event to find Wella.

He was glad the window was closing. All day his mind had bounced back and forth, torn between the advice of his closest friend, concern for his sister and the gauntlet laid down by a stranger. Soon the time for doubt would run out and the opportunities to flick the points and switch tracks would be over.

He rode the railmotor through the city, up to his quarters in Creaser. A cold shower and a change of clothes helped to revive him. Then he caught his reflection in a cracked mirror hanging from a door. He ran a hand through his hair, tangled and wet from the shower, and pulled at his black strap shirt and trousers. Having never been to an event before, he regretted not asking Ursel about the dress code. Shrugging his shoulders, he laced up his boots, filled up his canteen with water and headed back out into the heat.

He was early. To kill time, he walked the short distance to Naylor’s place in the Wallace Estates.

Looking down from the seventy-eighth floor of tower block twenty-one, the city appeared compressed, partial. Ground level had disappeared entirely. No sign of the underpass, or the limestone buildings, shacks and stalls that hugged its kerb. No trace of the carters cursing the slow plod of their goats, of citizens sheltering in pockets of shade, of Wethers begging for alms. All you could see were the rails and rolling stock of the tramway – a network of tributaries looping through the city, weaving