Nightmare

By Peter Foye

By the Third Millennium, after a series of short, vicious thermos-nuclear wars between the world’s super-powers had left most of the northern hemisphere a desolated radioactive desert, mankind had coalesced into fortress mega-cities in islands of relatively rad-free pockets that existed like random freaks of nature.
But such is the nature of human kind that before many ages had passed the lurid lessons of a brutal history have dimmed, are forgotten and all the bitterness, the greed, the crime, corruption, cruelty, murder and mayhem all erupt like a Biblical pandemic plague.

It is here, where only bravest carry the heavy badge of Justice... in Big City there are no innocents.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter Foye
• Release date: Feb 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370078318

Peter Foye

Peter Foye is now happily retired after a career in engineering spanning 42 years, now living in Oxfordshire and Cornwall. He has written over 30 short stories mostly for the enjoyment of friends and family, some have been, published in local newspapers, excerps read on radio and a few have won competitions. He has also written novels under the pen-name 'Peter Wallace'.

Book preview

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NIGHTMARE

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A FUTURE WORLD ?

Peter Foye

2018

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NIGHTMARE

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Copyright ©2018 by the author

Peter Foye

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NIGHTMARE

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Author’s Dedication

For Margaret, bless her, who would never know

I had an interest in writing.

For Gill, bless her, who does know

I have an interest in writing.

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By the Third Millennium, after a series of short, vicious thermos-nuclear wars between the world’s super-powers had left most of the northern hemisphere a desolated radioactive desert, mankind had coalesced into fortress mega-cities in islands of relatively rad-free pockets that existed like random freaks of nature.

But such is the nature of human kind that before many ages had passed the lurid lessons of a brutal history have dimmed are forgotten and all the bitterness, the greed, the crime, corruption, cruelty, murder and mayhem all erupt like a Biblical pandemic plague.

It is here, where only bravest carry the heavy badge of Justice… in Big City.

In Big City there are no innocents.

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CONTENTS

Nightmare On Yelme Street

Department Of Secrets

Overwatch Of The Gods

Seraphim

Angels Of Mercy

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About the Author

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PART 1

NIGHTMARE ON YELME STREET

Kruger Block, on the intersect between Obama and 432nd. Street was to all those groups, Town Aldermen, City Police Corps, State Troopers, Fire Chiefs, Feds, SWAT teams and the like, very 'bad news' of the worst kind. Every mega-city raised after the Scorched Earth solar storms of the 3rd. Millennium had them; it was where the drop-outs, the dead beats, the chancers, small-time hoods and general no-goods chose for their 'Turf' or 'Hood' or whatever their current term was. But even though this menace was generally everywhere these days some blocks had the rep that others had not and Kruger Block was known to have it, in Spades. But for the majority of citizens that were so unlucky, that they had suffered one bad downturn followed by another then foul timing compounded with misfortune and illness; they were the ones that suffered most and they simply had no choice. The rentals to the City Finance coffers were the lowest tariff here, lower than any 'burb above Rad-level, here you just rotted and died alone, this then was the pits of subsistence, the bottom of the liveable deep.

To me for the last four long hard years this was my own personal Hell, though I never doubted that the Lord Satan himself would be mugged, rolled and dispatched here before he could even raise a snarl. Such was my world and I won’t, no must not, regale you with my previous meteoric plunge in this miserable life, suffice to say I'm here now. After the first years of struggle when I proved that I was better, smarter, faster, more reliable and most important of all, honest, I rose in stature in the view of various charge leaders and was given a position. I was then actually employed as part of the City Ordnance Department on Level 2 in Kruger Block, in an office compound that could be secured in a time of danger, with Titanium-Steel blast doors in about 15 seconds and it even had its own small but grossly over-armed defence force that could fight off any raid attempt by local bad guys no matter how many soldiers they threw at us. Of course the downside was I could not live there, I had to live in a cell, way, way above, higher in the block.

In Kruger Block like everywhere else in the City burbs, the first ten or so levels were commercial / government offices and admin and were easily accessible by support security forces, the SSF and feared by miscreants and criminals of every shade, the next levels were the higher class stores built in guarded concourses, then came levels of smaller shops and eateries and all manner of places familiar to large cities of centuries past. Above these the living cells started, mostly basic affairs offering only the barest necessities of modern life but as the levels continued ever higher the crime rates lessened and cells became larger, better appointed, more rooms, more nice features and far more serious inbuilt security and I mean serious.

This is now my own special brand of expertise, I started as a junior engineer on security cameras and heat / movement detectors and as a fast learner I graduated to… let's say more interesting work. As my know-how increased so did my salary and today I can afford to live on Level 364, at one time at least 30 levels above even the rumour of a mugging. I would have said daylight mugging many years ago but in the Blocks it's ever 'daylight', can't remember the last time I ever saw real natural daylight, must have been as a kid but the memory is no longer there. Today they say it's the twelfth day before Festmas, a holiday period for all by City-Gov decree and everywhere commercial takes on a twinkly metallic shine accompanied with canned jingles that meant something, somewhere once, so it is said but I doubt it because it sounds super-quasi to me. But I'll say this different food stuffs appear in the dellies and the flashing colours and such lift the lowest spirits. Talking of which I will stop at the grog-shop going by and get a good bottle of 'Old Salts Wrack', tastes as hot as Hellfire and scorches the gut but it swims the senses for an hour, two hours and you can mind-travel where you like.

I have logged myself out through DNA analysis, eye print retina scans, blood count and the rest and exiting the last portal. I'm out with my spirit lightened and a bounce in my step. Each co-worker I pass seems to be wearing a silly happy holiday grin and chatter to one another like small multi-coloured birds in TV nature vidclips. They grin and nod as I pass, oh shit, I must be grinning too… can't help it, damn. Those that aren't smiling and have that drawn, sallow, eyes down look and shoulders hunched they are the ones with the least height to rise. They will just be taking the citizen evators to the lower cells a level or two above the commercial concourses and to whatever misery awaits there. Sadly as at this time of the cycle some will have hard Credits on them, they will not reach their sanctuary alive and some would say they were lucky. Others will be brutally maimed, abused for amusement and abandoned to a lingering holiday-long agonising fall into oblivion and the release of death.

The nature of the Blocks is a dynamic state continually changing, but Kruger Block had the worst birth ever, second and third grade materials used caused many stoppages during its agonisingly slow construction. There were unexplained sudden collapses, spontaneous conflagrations as raging fires burst through walls and thousands of deaths. The gangs that worked the crime ridden infra-structure simply stayed, evolving and mutating within it. They controlled the drug-fuelled black trade in everything, jobs, food, fresh water supply, medicine and life itself. Two hundred levels became battleground for rival tribes each seeking supremacy. I was ever acutely aware of the possible threats to my safety and was now hurrying towards the nearby gov-turbo evators. Once there I would be