The Bank Raid

Freezing water splashes over the bow of the boat and into my face, but I don’t dare take my hand off the side to wipe it away. The biting wind cuts through all the layers of my clothing and rags, and soon my bones are sore from the cold.

Hargreaves leans over from where he’s clutching the rail next to me. “Makes a pleasant change, doesn’t it?” he laughs.

“A change yes. Not so sure it’s pleasant.” The heat we were trapped in only a week ago seems like a distant memory, but at least my body didn’t ache so much there.

I could also see the dangers better there. I don’t like how high my collars have to be, or how low my hood is, and how much of my peripheral vision they block out.

“Killjoy!” Hargreaves is still grinning through his blue-tinted lips. The man’s an idiot, but I suppose that’s what we want right about now. I guess we’re all idiots in our own way, to have volunteered for this and not stayed back with the caravan.

I’m fed up with just sitting around though. I know there’s nothing that can save the world for us, but this mission might give a sliver of hope to the next generation. Assuming they live long enough for it.

We crest another wave and slam back down, knocking me out of my thoughts. On the horizon I can see the faint blur of land against the snow filled sky. The different hues of grey mix and blur, but in my gut I can feel that we’re almost there. I grip the railing tighter and can feel the strap for the gun across my back digging into my shoulder. All we can do now is hope we’ve gotten here in time.

As we draw nearer the land the tension in the boat grows. There wasn’t any talking above the roar of the water anyway, but now all of us are watching the approach. How easy this mission is going to be depends on whether anyone else has made it here yet.

The boat slows down and I can hear my own breathing again. Still none of us speak though. Far ahead, occasionally peeking through the low clouds, I can see snow-capped mountains, and the survival part of my brain makes a note of that. Sure it’s too cold to be ideal up here, but if the waters keep rising further south than we’ll have to take whatever high ground is left. Those mountains look like they could suit us pretty well.

Hargreaves nudges my elbow and points to the water below us. Now I can see why we’ve slowed. The water is shallower here, and we’re passing over sunken land. Not that far below us the deep blue of the water gives way to dark concrete grey. Though I’m used to seeing devastation like this, it takes me a moment to realise what I’m looking at. It’s only when we sail over the aeroplane, captured like a bug in amber, that the rest of the airport falls into place.

As always I want to reach out and touch the world that was, but the cold spray is warning enough that the water won’t be forgiving. If I touch it I’d join it, deep under the new sea.

The boat spins round and comes up along the new shoreline and all of us start to unload. My fingers are frozen round the railing and my knees are locked in place, but I stagger off after everyone else and stamp some life back into me on the solid ground.

An old road is just visible under the snow and our leader Manderly waves everyone forward. In the shelter of a bend we all huddle up for our final instructions.

“There’s no sign of anyone else down this way,” Manderly says, “but they could’ve approached from a different way. Keep your eyes out for tracks, or people, or supplies. If we get to the compound, Hargreaves is our man for getting us inside. The first job is to ensure the goods are safe. We can work on extraction later, if we need to. Protection first, understood?”

There’s a ring of muffled agreement, which is enough for Manderly to nod and wave us on. I do my best to spread out and remember the training, but in the cold all I want to do is huddle up and stay still. Tangled up in the whistling wind are our orders.

Protection first. Even at the cost of human lives.

The irony isn’t lost on me, and I suppose it’s our idea of survivor's guilt. We failed to protect the Earth before, so now we’ll all lay down our lives in defence of some tiny part of it, to prove how sorry we are. Too little, too late, however.

We scramble up a steep hillside. The first thing I see over the top of it is the shard of concrete jutting out from the hill, a splinter in the thumb of the world. The second thing I see are the dozen figures running towards it.

“Damn it!” I shout, just as some of the others started to open fire.

None of us have trained with the guns, but the first volley does what it was meant to. Most of the figures drop to the ground straight away, burying themselves in snow for protection. Only a couple head on to the shard. Now we just need to keep the pressure up so they can’t get the door open.

“Cover me!” I shout to Hargreaves.

As I slid down the hillside my feet keep slipping out from under me, but I don’t slow my pace. I have to stop them getting inside. This place is our only hope, and all that has kept me fighting for the last month.

At the bottom of the hill a shot explodes in the snow by my legs and I try to jump away. At least they’re as bad with their weapons as we are. Three rounds fire down from behind me, and one of them even hits its target, the intruder straight ahead. It’s only a graze across the arm however, and it’s not enough to stop him raising his gun at me again.

In warmer weather I’d have ducked. I might’ve drawn my dagger and thrown it at him, the same way I hunt cats round the old cities. I could’ve even raised my weapon in retaliation.

Here in the numbing ice, I throw myself forward and land with a damp phutt in the snow. I hear the shot go over my head and fight to get back to my feet. If they take another shot while I’m still prone I’m a goner.

Up on my knees and I’m face to face with the person shooting at me. I can’t get clear of the snow in time, so I raise my gun. “Drop it!” I scream at them.

They don’t drop their gun, and as it swings down I have to make a choice.

The shot echoes across the snow.

The person drops.

I stay in place, still staring, for another few moments, until another gun shot drags me back to the present.

The structure. I need to get there.

I swing round and start to run up along the side of the shard. There’s a short bridge that leads to the entrance and I make for the far end of it, gun levelled at the doorway. The two intruders are trying to dig the snow away from the door, and they haven’t seen me yet.

My hands shake as I try to aim the gun.

“Stop!” I call. “Step away!” Will they understand me?

One of them hears and lunges for their own gun. I’m still correcting my angle as they jerk forward and fall to the ground. I look up and see Hargreaves coming round the other side of the shard, gun moving from the fallen intruder to the cover the doorway, same as me.

With a quick desperate grin I start moving up, ready to secure the site. But the other one isn’t going so easily, and starts jabbing at the control panel by the door.

“Stop!” I shout. “Hands up and step away! Stop!”

But they’re still moving, and Hargreaves is reloading. I scramble forward, trying to hold the gun steady against the wind and my own shivering. As I try to line up the shot the intruder keeps moving, hoping to throw off my aim.

With a sigh I lower the gun. “Ah, hell.” One deep, icy breath and then I charge.

I catch them in the small of the back and ram them against the wall of the compound. It’s not a heavy blow, even with me weighed down under all the clothes. At first they stumble, but as they recover they fire their elbows back at me. My jacket takes the worst of the punishment as I try to find their head with both hands. Grabbing it I slam it against the wall. Again, not a heavy blow, but concrete to the head is enough to make anyone pause, and that’s all I need.

I throw them back to the snow and leap on top, holding them down. In the depths of their hood I can see a small face, far younger than I was expecting. I’m glad I saved my bullet.

Hargreaves comes skidding to my side. “Hang on a sec.” Digging about in his pack he pulls out some rope, and somehow between the two of us we get the kid tied up.

“Are there any others left?” I ask.

“No idea.”

I can still hear the sounds of fighting on the hillside around us, but I remember our orders. Protection first. “Get the door open. Let’s see what state this place is in.”

I don’t fancy the idea of lugging our captive around, so I drag them over to the rails of the bridge that spans the shallow hollow around the structure and tie them up. Someone else will be by soon enough – from our side or theirs – so it’s not like I’m leaving them out in the cold, undefended. Besides, we might not be long inside anyway.

“It’s open!” Hargreaves calls.

By the time I’ve run back he’s got the door ajar and I slide straight in. He ducks in after me and slams it shut again. The entrance hall is tall, reaching all the way up into the shard and shimmering with green and blue lights overhead. Though it isn’t that warmer, compared to outside it’s blissful.

It’s also clean, and in tact, and sealed. I can’t remember the last time I was in a building like this. It was before the rising water, I’m fairly sure of that, so it might as well have been a hundred lifetimes ago.

“This is a seed bank,” a woman says from down the hall, making me jump. “Just an archive, for scientific research. We don’t have any supplies. I mean, not many. Just enough to keep us fed here for a day or two. Certainly not enough to start fighting over.”

“We’re not here for supplies,” Hargreaves says. He lets his gun swing round to his back and puts his hands up. “We just wanted to check the bank was okay.”

The woman frowns at us and our weapons. “Seriously?”

“Yes,” I say. “Is the bank safe?”

“Well… yes. Safe as anything is. This place was built to be well above any sea level rises, and not many people know its here. You lot are the first outsiders we’ve had up this way.”

I can’t help notice the hint of accusation in her voice, and my face flushes. “We’re here to protect the bank. Information about it got out to the black market dealers a month or so ago. We have no idea how many people might try and get here, so we need to lock it down.”

“But why would anyone care about us? I told you, we don’t have supplies. We just have seeds, for preserving old species.”

I want to scoff at her off-handedness, to scream at her ‘Haven’t you seen the world out there? You’re needed!’. Hargreaves keeps his head better though, as always.

“That might not be clear in the information that was being sold,” he explains. “If people hear ‘seed’ they might hear food. We can’t risk all those samples being destroyed.”

The woman relaxes a little. “Thank you. So what are you going to do?”

There’s shouting from outside and pounding on the door. Hargreaves checks the camera before unlocking the door and letting in the remains of our group.

“There’s more people coming!” Manderly cries. “Coming over the hills now. Lock it down, lock it all down!”

Everyone takes up defensive positions around the door, and our lone sniper is boosted up to the single window. I shuffle to the back alongside the civilian scientist.

“We do what we always do when the world collapses,” I say to her. “We fight for whatever’s left.”