[IC] Chapter 1: The City has Fallen

Konstatos was working in the State University of Gardassia Central Nuclear Laboratory, down in the sub-basement, when he heard sirens sounding distantly above the ground level, fifty feet above him. The sub-basement shielded civilians from any potential radiation problems. It also shielded Konstatos from the thermobaric weaponry that was deployed against the civilians.

When the lights switched over to battery backup, Konstatos secured his equipment and shut down the fuel cell quality check process. He looked around the lab and grabbed the first three useful things he saw.Then, hesitantly, he checked in with his coworkers. He hadn't really been close to them in the past year. His foreign education had made him a suspect in the gathering political storm. Now, everyone knew the Severnans were invading. Konstatos' co-workers just looked at him silently when he asked whether they should go see what had happened, whether they could help.

Katerina had had a terrible day. Her heel had broken, she was late for work, and she struggled through the morning hoping her regular walk in the park at lunchtime would brighten her mood. Plopping on a bench, she had received a message from her best friend Ioanna. She wanted to go out and the thought appealed. Katerina excitedly had responded that she hold meet Ioanna after work and get to her side of town. Despite having a good time, around 0:30 Katerina’s mood dropped. She wasn’t really feeling up to the rest of the evening and as Ioanna had come to her to tell her that the group were going on to another club, Katerina declined. Grabbing the keys to Ioanna’s basement studio, Katerina hurriedly walked back to rest and unwind on Ioanna’s sofa.

When the first explosions happened, Katerina, in a deep sleep, thought she was dreaming. As the building began to shake and crack like thunder, all she could do was sit panicked in the dark until after the end of the torment. Frozen to her spot on the floor she could hear practically nothing but the occasional thump of heavy things hitting the floor - she would later discover this was rubble from the nearby buildings.

It took a long time for her to brave pushing open the door past the debris and putting her head outside to see the carnage that awaited her.

The sirens were what tore her from her unsettling dreams. First the sirens, then the shaking.
Maeve awoke in her own bed. Drowsy she glanced at the radio clock beside the opened bottle of red label scotch on the nightstand. 2 a.m. She had barely slept for three hours.

Lena. Lena had told her to go home. Told her to sleep. It had been a rough couple of days and Maeve had been spent. Lena said, she would take care of the bar.
Lena.
Maeve subconsciously reached for the small silver medal around her neck.
Another siren.
Lena?

The woman got up and looked out of the small bedroom window that usually was a natural light source to the subterranean apartement. She grabbed a pair of jeans, shirt, jacket. Maeve put on her boots. What was happening?

Lena.
She had to get to Lena.

As she was about to leave, she thought of the tape. She had promised. Mave went back into the small kitchen. Another window showing a stretch of dark pavement. She bent down to reach the drawer....when she saw the balls of fire from the corner of her eye and suddenly ...

...the world ended.

Dan was buried deeply in ledger sheets for one of his troublesome clients. The pressure to cook the books was a constant occurrence and double-checking the supporting documents was always a chore because this particular client often altered the documents. He was thus engrossed when he felt a compression wave. It felt like a thwump! He was so focused on analyzing numbers that he only looked up from the screen. Then he heard louder bangs and explosions and pushing his chair back alarmed he immediately booked it to the basement where all the archives were stored.

It was cool and comfortable down there but his anxiety was getting the better of him. Smoothing his dark brown, medium-length hair, he started to pace as he punched his wife's number into the phone. He knew there was unrest in the city....

"Dammit!" Dan tapped at the screen of his phone a few times as if it would help matters. His anxiety was at an all-time high as he rushed up from the basement frantically fighting with the basement door on the way up which clued him into the fact that the building itself was probably badly damaged.

Maybe it's the basement blocking the signal, Oh god I hope they are alright.

As he felt his way up the now darkened stairway his hands gliding along the cheaply papered wall, he kept seeing his family in his mind's eye and that terrified him.

Once safely at the top of the stairs, a thick haze floating around the hallway made it difficult to see anything clearly but he could just make out the double glass door exit ahead. Dense smoke blocked his view of the outside but only for a second as it slowly cleared, perhaps displaced by a puff of wind. He tentatively stepped outside, sniffed the air and scanned the area as far as he could given the clouds of dust and smoke and piles of rubble.

"Maeve? That you? What's going on? Does your cell phone work? Dan taps his phone again already knowing it would be futile and sees Katarina and Konstantinos together a few yards away. "Come on, there's Katerina and Konstantos."

Her head swam with the overwhelming destruction of it all. None of this was real, a dream. But the biting chill of reality forced Katerina on through the maelstrom. Oddly framed in the orange wash glow of the night was Konstantos, a strange beacon of normality.

Dr Amapis?
Whe…wha… Katerina stammered, it a spurge of gibberish. She had wanted to ask what had happened. She had even thought of asking if they were dead. All manner of questions that would have been right to ask but for which there was no reason Konstantos would know the answer. Instead she managed Why?

Voices from behind Katerina had stirred further from her stupor. She whispered under her breath Maeve,..Mr Hicksman

"Uh," Konstantos says uncertainly. "Katerina?" he looks around in the hellish glare of the burning wreckage. "We should probably get away from here," he says, "or ... maybe bombs don't fall twice?" He laughs anxiously.

Maeve followed to the small group of familiar people. She nodded in greeting. For a few moments, she just stood there. She put the crowbar she had grabbed somewhere on the way down, leaned it against her boot. Then she reached in her pocket and took out a cigarette. After a few drags she absent-mindedly wiped away some of the blood over her left brow with her hand.

"Sure. I need to get to the bar." It wasn't far. Maeve needed to see whether ....there was anything to see. She needed to know. Nothing else mattered right now.

The woman lifted the prybar, turned in the familiar direction and started walking again.

"I have to find my family. The cell towers must be shot, maybe literally. Oh my god this isn't real. Can't be happening." Muttering away, shaking his head in disbelief he follows the others for lack of anything better to do. His family would be on the other side of town if they were still ......

No! He wouldn't give credence to that thought by forming the words.... and he'd never get to them the way things looked at the moment.

Konstantos touches the hammer tucked through his canvas belt. He's still wearing his lab coveralls, he hadn't taken time to put on regular clothes. Now the working clothes are all he has, perhaps. He stares at the drone, trying to decide what to do. "Let's leave," he blurts out anxiously. "We don't want to find out what this drone does."

Katerina had pulled out her phone. Desperately she tried to message Ioanna. Where the hell was she?

I live on the other side of the city. Maybe it’s safe there? It would be a long walk but the promise of a hot shower and a warm bed after this evening would be to tempting to give up. After all, what ever had happened was probably just around here.

Severnans. Damn. So that's what was happening.
Later they'd have to think about their next steps.
Now people could still be saved.
"Leave then." Maeve said and walked towards what was left of her establishment. She could still taste dust and soot on the air, smell the burning ... things. As she got to the rubble, the woman tried to assess who could be helped. Maybe Lena had gotten away in time? Maybe somebody had seen her?

She heard the bzz bzzz a little distance away. She grabbed the crowbar a little tighter.