Blip

In the distance, a plume of fire leapt from the tip of a smokestack. Black, greasy smoke followed it for a few moments before subsiding.

Agent Daniel Burgen glanced at the industrial exhalation as he waited for his partner’s next direction, hands on the wheel.

“They’re turning to the left up ahead.” Agent Rebecca Londo said and indicated the turning with a pointed finger. “They’re not the only ones to take that turn, so just drive as-is.”

“Roger.” Burgen replied and set the indicator. The civilian-looking hover-speeder took the turning with grace.

For over an hour they had been following a green blip on their radar display in their vehicle. The blip was suspected to be the Blip. Wanted for arson, bombings and murder, the Blip, as they were known, was a terrorist wanted internationally. Several teams throughout the City sat ready on standby once Burgen and Londo had confirmation, but till then, it was in civilian vehicles, with no alarms to clear the road. One other car was tailing this suspect, trying to keep the suspect between them and Burgen. Three other potentials were being tracked around the city. Burgen was increasingly convinced they were being led around for the Blip’s amusement, but the Bureau could not ignore the possibility that one of the blips contained the suspect.

“They’re turning again.” Londo said. Rapid fingers movements on the touch-display of the positioning system. Burgen followed, doing his best to appear nonchalant.

The turning took them to a residential of some sort, grey apartment blocks stretching as far as he could see. Only the smokestack on the horizon betrayed the world around them as being anything but eternal apartment blocks. The blip was here, but out of sight.

The system display shifted about, turning from a city map into a mess of coloured lines with streaks of information, partially overlaid onto the glass of the windscreen.

“There, that maintenance shaft.” Londo said and indicated an orange line descending into the concrete a few meters ahead. The blip was still on their display.

“They must have access to the maintenance control software somehow, we’ll have to request access to get in.” Londo grumbled while thumbing through menus on the display. An earpiece was hurriedly clipped over her ear and she shouted a request into the microphone. Burgen kept an eye on the blip moving along the orange line on the maintenance map. Their paired vehicle was keeping pace above-ground as best they could, but eventually they would hit a stretch of residential or corporate too dense to keep up.

A tunnel opened out of the ground with a hiss of hydraulics, wide enough to admit several vehicles like theirs. Orange rings set at regular intervals distinguished it from any other maintenance tunnel in the City.

Burgen took a deep breath and eased the speeder down into the maintenance tunnel, turning the headlights to their maximum output. Within a minute he had lost their position, following the blip on their display along the labyrinthine tunnels. They had been constructed to permit the vehicles and industrial suits of the maintenance crews, so their speeder had plenty of space. Burgen kept telling himself that every time they rounded a corner, or their surroundings changed in the subterranean space. Their only salvation was the maintenance tunnel map on the display. They had to limit the overlay to the windscreen, or the tangle of coloured lines would blind them.

The blip kept its pace ahead of them, even when Burgen had floored it initially to make up for lost time. The support structures cast eerie shadows as the speeder’s lights passed, the two agents watching every movement with strained eyes. The maintenance tunnels were like a hidden world, a grim shadow of the metropolis that they helped sustain.

Burgen was drifting the speeder along the blue-marked tunnel they had shifted to, when agent Londo put a hand on his shoulder. On the display, the blip had stopped moving. Londo whispered some questions into her earpiece. On the ground above was a government office-building, but nothing extraordinary, mainly clerical work for one of the healthcare sub-branches.

Londo motioned for Burgen to slip on his own earpiece. They were to approach the vehicle and attempt to verify identity.

“What do you think we’ll find?” Londo said as they climbed out of the speeder and holstered their pistols.

Burgen pondered the question as he watched the automatic door close on their speeder. “Some innocuous speeder, hidden trunk filled with black-market gear.”

“If it is the Blip.” He added.

“You don’t think it’s some souped-up death-machine?” Londo said.

Burgen could not be sure if she were joking. “Well, we followed it from the highway, that sort of machine would draw attention.” Burgen said and brought up the display on his wrist, a live feed from the speeder’s display.

The blip had stopped just after a crossing between a blue and a red maintenance line. The two tunnels were wide enough to admit trains, lined with coloured rings at regular intervals. Londo stood with her back to one of these rings, peeked the corner and signaled Burgen on. Ducking his head, he sprinted the distance to a steel support on the other side, peering around the corner when he was in cover.

The tunnel was dark without the headlights of their speeder. Orange lamps provided the only illumination, indicating the dimensions of the tunnel ahead of them. A speeder engine whined in the gloom ahead. A pair of red taillights were still on, showing the rear of a civilian vehicle resting on the concrete floor of the maintenance tunnel.

“Cover me, using goggles.” Burgen said and unclipped the visor from his belt. Londo nodded across the way and put a hand on her pistol, eyes scanning the gloom around them for movement.

With the night-vision goggles on, the vehicle was much easier to see, a civilian speeder of some old make. There was no brand identification to see from his angle. Burgen mumbled the identification on the license plate into the earpiece but doubted it would be of much use; If this truly were the Blip’s vehicle that they used often, that plate would be swapped regularly. The trunk was closed, and the interior seemed empty, one of the car doors standing open.

“Suspect appears to have left the vehicle. Unable to confirm from this position.” Burgen said into the earpiece, careful to keep his voice low. Signaling Londo to move closer, he flipped the visor up and edged out from the cover of the steel.

Viewing the civilian speeder through the sights of his pistol as he moved closer, Burgen fought to keep his breathing steady. There could easily be someone in the back with a submachinegun, ready to spring out like a jack-in-the-box. He caught Londo looking him in the eye, and he looked back. Burgen borrowed some of the calm her saw there. With a nudge of head and gun, she indicated the backseat. He nodded back and waited behind one of the taillights. Agent Londo counted down over the earpieces and both agents rose and aimed into the backseat in a smooth motion, mounted flashlights on full.

Nothing, not even an errant fast food wrapper in the gap between the front and back seat. Just red pleather. They checked the front seats as well, Londo pointing the flashlight through the rolled-up window into the footrests. Empty.

“Subject not in vehicle. Unable to confirm identity.” Londo said into her earpiece. She continued asking and answering questions while Burgen examined the interior further, finding precious little. The interior had no marks of personality. M aybe they could get fingerprints from the dash or the steering wheel, but he had his doubts on that score.

“Burgen, the engine’s out, it’s not even warm.” Londo said. She had popped the hood of the speeder.

She was right. The engine was still and cold, even when Burgen reached down into it.

“What’s that whining sound then?” Londo asked and looked into the cabin.

Burgen’s fingers brushed against something inside the hood with a different texture to the metal of the engine. It came free with a slight tug. A sleek, black speaker that emitted a sound like the whine of a speeder engine on idle.

“There’s definitely something suspicious about this speeder, but nothing to give positive ID.” Londo said.

Burgen examined the speaker and found the off switch. 

Londo stopped her examination of the speeder after Burgen switched off the speaker. “Don’t you still hear something?”

Burgen only had a moment to register the low hum that had been disguised by the whine of the speaker when a shape dropped from the ceiling of the support tunnel to land on the floor. It was black against the gloom and heavy enough for him to feel the impact of its landing several meters away. A new sound filled the tunnel, this one definitely not from a speeder engine.

“Londo, take cover!” Burgen shouted and dove behind the speeder as quickly as gravity would take him. A heavy calibre machine-gun shattered the stillness of the maintenance tunnel and the surface of the wall behind the speeder, agent Londo sliding over the trunk of the vehicle as concrete chips rained down. In the chaos, Burgen was glad for the earpiece; at least one ear would not be blown out by the roar of the weapon firing at them. The speeder rocked and shuddered behind the two agents as bullets impacted on the far side, Burgen praying that the body would hold.

“We can’t stay here!” Londo shouted over the noise while shielding her face from the raining concrete and glass with her arm.

“We can’t fight it either!” Burgen shouted back. He had only had a brief glimpse of their attacker, but whatever it was, something holding that level of firepower would not be deterred by a couple of sidearms, nor the emergency weapons in their trunk. A chip of concrete flew into his eye and stung. His ears were ringing from the cacophony echoing up and down the tunnel.

After a moment, Londo’s face lit up and she looked Burgen in the eye. “When I say go, go for our speeder.” Without further explanation, she scooted past him on her knees to kneel by the side of the speeder’s hood. Burgen tapped the display on his wrist and entered the code for ‘officers under fire’, wishing he could give more details.

Londo put her pistol sideways on the ground, aiming vaguely towards the source of the gunfire, waited for a lull, then threw the pistol along the ground with the flashlight on, as if she had dove out to fire. “Go!” She shouted, then spun around to follow Burgen. The tunnel lit up with gunfire again, shredding the far side of the speeder from where the two agents were running for their lives.

It was only a short distance, less than 5 metres, but it felt far longer as Burgen dashed for all he was worth. He heard the roar of gunfire stop, followed by a whine of machinery as their assailant turned to refocus, but he dared look, instead focusing on getting out of sight and back to the speeder. With the display on his arm he commanded it to open the doors and start the engine, diving onto the driver’s seat and shifting it to first. He saw Londo sliding over the speeder and down beside her seat in the light from the gunfire. Even as she hopped into her seat and slammed the door closed, the gunfire stopped, and both heard the jump-start of a heavy-duty speeder engine.

Burgen stepped on the accelerator and set off down the tunnel. He had no idea where they had come from but for now, they needed distance.

Londo was pale and clutching her left shoulder as she furiously tapped at the speeder’s display. The radar blip they had chased as now chasing them and was rounding the corner. Within moments, gunfire echoed down the tunnel and a couple of rounds pinged off the body of the speeder. The rear windscreen stopped one bullet and gained a severe network of cracks. Burgen cranked the wheel left and turned off the blue-ringed tunnel.

“Speeder might hold a second or two under this kind of fire,” Londo said, speaking as quickly as Burgen had ever heard anyone speak, “We can’t let it draw a bead on us again.”

“You tell me where to go, then, I have no idea,” He said, then looked at his partner’s pained features, “You okay?”

Her hand came away bloody from a deep graze in her clutched shoulder. “Bullet went straight across, I’ll be fine as long as it doesn’t get a second go at it.”

Londo tapped a few more times on the display and the map overlaid over the windscreen, a vague route displayed through the network of tunnels to the surface.

“Fastest route, but it doesn’t consider,” Agent Londo was interrupted when the speeder banked hard to the right to escape the sight of their pursuer, “Doesn’t consider frequent turns like that. Try and stick to it, I’ll make sure the heavy guys are ready at the exit.”

Burgen did his best, sticking to the route through the tunnels while avoiding a straight line between them and the green blip on the display. It was hot on their heels and gaining. For a moment he idly wondered if the other pursuit teams throughout the city had experienced similar situations, but the thought did not get far when he had to duck down a dark-green ringed tunnel to escape. Beside him, Londo had applied a band-aid over the graze and was communicating with people on top, her good arm on the dash, steadying her against the sudden turns.

Their attacker had gained significantly on them, enough that even turning as often as possible could not keep the line of sight broken. The rear windscreen shattered under a short burst that forced Burgen and Londo to bunch as low in their seats as they could, one bullet taking off the headrest of Londo’s seat.

“Chief, if we don’t slow this thing down somehow, it’ll make swiss cheese out of this speeder!” Londo shouted into the microphone while Burgen stepped on the accelerator and spun the steering wheel like a madman. The other speeder was close enough for them to hear the high-pitch whine of its engine as it banked to follow. There was no time to fully clear the corner before it spotted them, and their speeder’s trunk took a few bullets. The exit was only two turns away, less than a minute, but it would only take a lucky 10 seconds to wreck their speeder or for a bullet to ricochet through the cabin. Burgen tried not to think about it too hard as his eyes darted back and forth between his view of the maintenance tunnel displayed in the speeder’s headlight and the display of the route.

A hiss of hydraulics up ahead, like the maintenance ramp was taunting them. See, you’re so close. The tunnel up ahead lit by blinking orange lamps. The blip turned the corner behind them and Burgen thought he could hear it preparing to fire. There were no turns ahead. Just a straight tunnel for nearly 10 seconds at full speed.

The tunnel lit with gunfire. It took Burgen a moment to realise it was coming from the front. Ahead of them at the corners of the exit were a couple of dark shapes, only betrayed as not being switchboxes by the red sights of their large rifles. The weapons fired again and Burgen could hear the rounds impact on the speeder behind them. It did not return fire, instead visibly retreating into the network of tunnels on the display. Grateful, Burgen slowed the speeder just enough to take the corner and go up the ramp into the open air.

Handing over the information they had on the attacking speeder, agents Burgen and Londo watched as the ‘heavy boys’ rolled into the maintenance tunnel.

After a moment of silence, Londo broke into a fit of laughter, cut short by a wince of pain from her shoulder. Paramedics had seen to her wound, but it was not critical. Burgen had promised to drive to the hospital first-thing. Now, he just looked at her.

“We found both,” Londo explained and held up two fingers. “A civilian speeder AND a souped-up death machine.”

That got a chuckle out of Burgen too.