Gray

Dawn was barely breaking. Crossing the courtyard with a towel on my shoulder, I looked up at the frowning sky. Thunderclouds loomed overhead like a parasitic mushroom. A couple of heavy drops smeared across my face and drifted away, carried by the wind. New swirls penetrated the jacket over my shoulders, stealing the warmth. I dropped my eyes to my feet, where I almost always looked, and hurried toward the shower. No more sticking my ass in icy water. And, all in all, I was happy — not that I was really happy. I'd long ago forgotten how to feel happy, just noting better days in the series of worries, difficulties, problems. It seemed that now I could breathe a sigh of relief. The room where I had organized the shower was perfect for it. There were no drafts, the wiring was working, all that was left was to attach the socket and screw in the bulb. The clogged drain was cleaned by one of the betas, Adron, a former plumber. He also laid a small pipe from our cistern and hung the watering can. I bought plastic pipes for a pittance at a building materials hypermarket, and I thought then that at least some of the gang was really useful, and for good reason: Adron suggested installing a gas-fired water heater. There were gas cylinders in the kitchen. Not a lot, but Dieter said I could have some. I found it on the same website as the third generator. It was all turned on in no time, and then the long-awaited day came and I finally had a proper shower. The next day, Will said he'd come with me like the other omegas. Somebody had to show them how everything worked. I hadn't asked anyone to come with me, and I wasn't happy to have company, but I didn't argue. After all, they weren't lucky enough to be born omegas either. The guys even had shampoo and other such stuff. They shared it with me, seeing as I didn't even have a bar of soap. It might be a good idea to get a couple more overalls if I had a chance. The ones I had were always stinking. I managed to get a clean one in a day - Will, by the way, had made omegas take turns doing the laundry. But that wasn't what upset me at all. As soon as word of the showers spread among the others, there were plenty of people eager to take advantage of the new amenity. There was always a line during the day, as well as in the evening and early morning. It was possible to wash without hurrying — so that nobody would be breathing down your neck — either at night or in the wee hours of the morning. Otherwise, you had to stand behind the last one and wait for an hour or even longer. They also complained, bastards, why I hung only one sprayer... I would have hung them all in a line, but it was no use. I went to complain to Dieter when the gas in the tank ran out on the third day. Before the alpha could say that we had everything in common, I said let them use it, but only cold water - not all the battles I could win now. Gas is more useful to omegas, otherwise we won't last long into winter. It's freezing on the third floor, no heating. But the alphas and betas could use cold water. I mean, they've been washing in barrels and it's all right. Or they could look for more gas tanks. A fuckload of not-so-cheap gas. Dieter thought about it and agreed, which he announced to the others at dinner. The next tank ran out on the fifth day... Anyway, I installed a clever plug, and now, no matter who turned on the hot water, the heater wouldn't light up, as if the tank was empty. Clearly, the alphas and betas wouldn't go complaining and asking for another one - they're not supposed to. I explained to Will and the others how to turn the plug on, and warned them that if they told anyone, they'd freeze the things that omegas were sorry for, and they'd get a miscarriage or an ectopic. Anyway, I gave them a good scare. They were impressed, and I told Will to tell the new recruits the same thing. I also told Adron... he got up early, worked hard, and kept his mouth shut. I wish I had more like him. Dieter's gang now numbered about three hundred people. There were about fifty or sixty of them living in the premises: a dozen of them omegas, the rest alphas and betas. The others occupied houses in the neighborhood. After the next gang had been taken out, the walls of the houses weren’t neglected. They put a trusted one of their own in charge, cut the gangs in half, where a slightly larger portion came out of the established members of the Mark, and left them in the occupied site. In addition to those who had joined forcibly, outsiders began to appear. Those who couldn’t get their own food, and didn’t want to be homeless and drunk. That's how we got Adron. Not a bandit, but life had crushed him. There were children, and there was nothing to feed them with — his enterprise collapsed and about seventy people were out of work. We weren’t poor. Robberies, burglaries, thefts — quickly became a routine. It all started with the fact that about eight people, most of them betas, turned out to be great burglars and pickpockets, but they weren’t very good with guns. Dieter decided to use the guys for their intended purpose. There were still targets to be chosen. I was present at the conversation and proposed to rob those who supported the tyrants and made a fortune from it. The motion was seconded. In my mind, I didn't bully — I chose rich people, but those who didn't have a lot of power. I also quickly realized that I could easily make the our job easier by knocking out the cameras and systems at home. Not to mention the fact that it was easy to find out the routine of the house through the electronic windows of the home surveillance system, so that nobody had to hang around in respectable neighborhoods, peering through fences and windows. That option pleased the boys, but under Dieter, I agreed to help as long as they promised not to kill or rape. The thieves were proud of their craft and even slightly offended. I'd heard that violence wasn’t honored among them. A good job was a robbery or a theft that was noticed after the thieves were long gone. And yet they gave their word. There was cash in plenty. There were guns. The dealers who sold their mixtures in the territories appropriated by Mark also began to pay a percentage. The disgruntled ones got shot. Dieter made it illegal to sell to minors or hang around schools. To see how serious he was, they were hunted down. Those who violated the order were slaughtered on weekends, on the same day, to eliminate the possibility of coincidence. After three weeks — and three punitive missions — it finally dawned on everyone that Dieter was not joking. The senior ones understood faster because they remembered, but those who had only heard of Pride needed a demonstration. But even after that, Dieter continued to pick three or four men from the gang and stick them with the peddlers. The "lookouts" were hard to identify, and all sorts of people kept being drawn into the gang. Dieter found something for everyone to do. His system worked. Soon it became obvious that we needed a second stronghold of the type we had and size of ours. I insisted that they choose a third, but kept it a secret. The second location, four kilometers to the south, was already being settled. They recently found something suitable to the west, closer to the suburbs. I didn't have time to look at the place and estimate the front of work - I was dealing with the second one and continued to stuff our barn. It was a lot of work, and I had to get up early, which I couldn't stand. And if I wanted to take a shower, I had to get my ass off the mattress before dawn. I was just going up the brick stairs when my bracelet beeped. Frowning, I ran up to the second floor shower room and hurried to set my computer on one of the shelves. The machine started in a couple of seconds, my fingers sliding over the sensors. My watch was a complex programmable signaling device that supported many functions. It cost a fortune, and to keep it out of sight, I'd tucked it into a shabby case of old mechanics. A simple combination of sounds communicated exactly what the difficulty was. One of the programs, synchronized with the clock, tracked everyone who passed through the three arm-lanes leading to our barn. On my second day in this hole, I walked around the building, assessed the approaches, found the right angles, and attached sensors. The sensors were coin-sized devices, placed in pairs, opposite each other, to form an invisible magnetic thread. When this thread was interrupted - that is, when someone walked down the street, blocking the signal with their body for a moment, the program recorded the "break" and the time. Over the months that passed, a small database of specific information lined up in steady sequences that suggested how many people were walking and where they were going at a given time. For example, in the first week of operation, the program calculated that between nine and ten, no more than a dozen people left the base and returned within an hour. From six to seven in the evening about three dozen people left — Dieter and the rest went to the showdown. They came back at midnight or the next morning — sometimes they spent the night in the repulsed den. The increase in the total number of heads was observed in proportion to time, and so on, all data continued to be summarized and analyzed, forming ‘standard’ flows of movement. The algorithm was building on its own, based on the new data arriving. But when the program noted an anomaly in the loss-gain equation, my watch would be signaled and I could check what was wrong. The first such anomaly occurred when the bandits were having another drinking party and, with Dieter's permission, brought in ‘guests’. I just gave a break, erased the case from the program's memory as exceptional and therefore not suitable for building a new sequence, and continued tracking. Having cut into the tracking network and connected the Eyes — my personal cameras, I cursed! The tyrates were encircling on all sides. They hadn't fully unloaded from their vehicles yet, and I had already activated three microdynamics located in the common room, second and third floor. ‘Raid, raid! I loudly pronounced a word that everyone outside the law understands. ]Tyrates. Nine cars. Three at each arm.’ I meant the south, north, and west alley. ‘Ten to twelve scumbags in each. Armed with machine guns and mini-shields. You'll have less them a minute!’ On several cameras at once, I could already see them snaking toward the barn. Morning raid. Oh, fuck! It was bound to happen sooner or later, and that's why I hurried as fast as I could, plugging in my devices just in case, and yet when it did, I shit myself. The clock beeped again. Another program was picking up wave-level interference. The tyrates had knocked out the link in pulses — I could no longer transmit to the speakers or receive images from the cameras. The transmitted images immediately faded to black squares. The thermal imaging cameras were connected next. In order not to waste resources and not to disperse forces, the operator scanned the terrain, calculating objects that emitted heat at a distance. That's where the team would be sent. I slammed the case shut. I wasn't afraid of the comp, the case had a layer of special foil, so it wouldn't be possible to see that heat source. I had no such protection. I turned on the ice water, threw off my things, and stood under the shower, praying that the temperature would drop as soon as possible. If I froze properly, maybe I wouldn't be detected. The generator was in the basement. It wouldn't penetrate the concrete. I didn't even have time to light the gas cylinder. I had no choice but to wait and hope for the best. The shooting started a minute later. Before the cameras went off, I saw ours blown up in the darkness. Many of them, as usual, were sleeping with their clothes on, which could be considered lucky today. It remained to reach for the automatic rifles. Some of them hung on the walls of the second floor, about a dozen in Dieter's room. There was also a small arsenal there for emergencies. Grenades of all kinds, especially smoke and noise ones, sawed-off shotguns, and rifles, and other random weapons taken from others were hidden under the stairs. And its well, by the way, was a pretty good strategic point. No windows, thick walls - and a sea of weapons. It'd be hard for the Tyrates to take the high ground. Besides, everyone had personal weapons - pistols of all calibers, knives and other stuff. And Dieter regularly checked the guys' readiness, suggesting situations and options. It could happen at lunch, or when he came back from a showdown, or stood in front of the visor in the early morning, closing the screen. Hopefully there was some good to come from those trainings. As I continued to shake from the bone-chilling cold, I listened to the gunfire outside. We hadn't been taken completely by surprise. We had plenty of guns, we had the territory. Plus the upper floors — it was an advantage. On the other hand, there were about a hundred tyrates (three cars at three arms, each with about a dozen people). Twice as many as us. We were supposed to be isolated in a barn... And they had support, judging by the cut-off signal. I was getting a major shiver. The gunfire didn't subside as I stood under the shower jets in near darkness. It could only have seemed to me, but there was shouting outside. It was bursting. I tried to figure out where everything was happening. It looked like the courtyard and the first floor of the hangar, where our cars were parked. If we were good, we shouldn't have let the tyrates in any farther. It was harder to get into the hangar any other way, the windows were too high. If they'd brought extension ladders though, it might have worked. But I didn't see anything like that. It was time to get out. If no one showed up, they must have missed it, or the program had classified the small heat source differently. Like a street dog, say. And right now, in the confusion, heat sensors were useless. In this kind of point-and-shoot — full-scale battle — I was a bug, if I showed up on screens at all. I pulled on my clothes with shaky hands and began to sneak down. The hole in the passage showed at the bottom. Outside, it was getting brighter. A fierce skirmish was unfolding in the courtyard. Shouting, gunfire. An explosion threw up a small stone, making me back. Footsteps sounded. I slumped against the wall in surprise and fear as a pair of fighters flew in. They immediately scattered apart, taking up opposite joints and began firing. I was stunned, squirmed, but I couldn't move. ‘Tirm!’ I shouted, but a new line, now backwards, drowned out my voice. ‘Tirm!’ I called out again, recognizing the alpha who often played with toys. The alpha heard, turned around and pointed the barrel at me. ‘Worm?’ ‘Yeah.’ I went down a couple of steps and fell on my ass — we were being shot at again. ‘Listen.’ I yelled, once I'd got a couple seconds of respite. ‘We should take out whoever's sitting in the van by the south arm.’ ‘Fuck yeah!’ The alpha fired another volley. ‘Drop it!’ He yelled to his partner, and he pulled the pin. I covered my ears, there was a crash, more breaking up, more dust. ‘Listen!’ I didn't give up. ‘There's a system in there jamming the connection, if you remove it, I can help! Don't go near it, just shoot something in the gas tank or grenade it!’ Time was up, we were under fire again. ‘Brillian idea, worm! I'll just iron my shoelaces! Did you even see what's going on? Do you think we'll ever get out of here?’ Tirm was implying that there were only two of them with weapons, and there was no way out of this spacious but essentially stone sack. ‘There's an emergency exit!’ I wouldn't have raked the building for long without walking up and down it, looking behind every door and sticking my nose in the basement and attic. Tirm looked at me meaningfully for the first time. Come on, oaf, think it through. How many times have I laid you out in dumb strategies. You haven't won once. ‘Let's go!’ He finally made his decision and I swerved to the left, down to the base of the stairs. Another grenade was thrown behind us, and I could already hear the footsteps of the pursuers. I always learned the plans by heart — just in case. And this hovel was no exception. The door creaked on its rusty hinges and fell open. Tirm didn't even look around to see if they were waiting for him on the other side, flying out with a machine gun. But we were lucky. There was no one in the small nook formed by the excavator's bowl and empty, rotted crates. ‘I'm staying here.’ I told them. ‘I'll sit on the bar stairs.’ ‘Chicken!’ Reached my ear. None of them turned around, of course, but I didn't wait, already climbing up the old dumpster. Hooked the extension ladder, climbed it up and settled down on the second flight, being wary of climbing higher — the bars had rusted long ago, and I could barely pull my suitcase. I opened it, started it. The cameras were silent. How long could it take Tirm? Would he even get there? The Tyrates must have posted sentries guarding the perimeter. And if he does get there, will he take down the system guys? I should have told him to smash the fucking equipment, too, I regretted belatedly. They were shooting everywhere, so it was impossible to make out what was going on and where. And then there was another explosion. A cloud of smoke rose from where Tirm had gone. The cameras came back to life. I was in contact! Holy shit! Smoke, corpses, fire, and a bunch of people holed up everywhere, ours and the Tyrates. First, I cut off the guests' comms. They grabbed their helmets and looked around. Good, now you're as deaf as we are. Next I switched to the second speaker — the second floor, where about seven people were stuck; it was unclear where the others had gone. I turned the sound down to minimum and spoke into the microphone: ‘Can you hear me?’ No response — no one on the cameras was responding. I added a couple of percent and kept repeating the same thing, gradually increasing the sound, until finally one and then the others began to look around. The heads nodded. Yes! ‘There are sixteen men at the bottom of the stairs. Full ammunition. I knocked out their comms. They're communicating by sight and gestures, discussing something, I guess, whether to attack or not. I suggest we attack first. I'll turn on their machine gun fire from the speaker on the first one, they'll think they've been outflanked and attacked from the rear. The fastest one will scramble down the stairs and throw a grenade in the common room. If you agree, nod. The alphas began to confer. In half a minute the decision was made. ‘On the count of three. I said, already selecting the desired track of the noise effect, began to count.’Three!’ Down below, at full power, the gunfire rumbled. The tyrates, draped in black ammunition, scurried away, turned around and started firing in the middle of nowhere. At that time one of ours was already running down the stairs, headlong, with a clamped grenade. He threw the parcel around the corner without looking, and rushed backwards, took two steps, shutting up. Bang! ‘Three alive.’ I began to call the location of the survivors, when the guys were already coming down to finish off the survivors. Neither Dieter nor Zorm were among them. The omegas were quiet in a corner of the third floor - -I couldn't help them. They'd better stay down there until it was over. The ones below moved farther into the hangar. There, behind the truck, ours were hiding, who, I couldn't see; on the other side, behind the cars, a bunch of tyrates. When help came, they attacked from both sides, outflanked and began to crush them. Old tires were burning in the yard, the holes from the explosions and the veil of grenades were still smoking. There were bodies lying around, and it was impossible to make out whose bodies they were. There was another group hiding behind a pile of sand, someone was firing at them from the neighboring windows. I jumped up when I heard the gunfire right next to me. It sounded like it was happening inside the building. A second later, tyrate came out of the doorway, keeping his field of view open and looking for possible targets. I froze, feeling the blood rush from my face in fear. I was perched almost above his head, just to the right; if he turned, he would have noticed. As if hearing my thoughts, the tyrate froze, then turned his barrel sharply toward me. I froze, realizing that this was how it was going to end.