Defender

  “We’ll now climb the north internal staircase to reach the power control centre,” said Sakshi. “That’s even higher than Industry 1, jutting upwards into the Hive’s outer structural shield.”

  She headed for a narrow, spiralling staircase. I was horrified to see it stuck out over the edge of the gallery. Even worse, its steps and sides were made of a sort of metal grille, so anyone using it would be able to see through them to the nine level drop below. My head started to swim just looking at it.

  I opened my mouth to confess that I couldn’t face climbing that staircase, but everyone on the operational teams of my unit knew I was afraid of heights. Multiple voices were already speaking, asking variations of the same question.

  “Is there another way to get to the power control centre?”

  Sakshi looked startled by the mass questioning. “Yes. Each gallery of the power supply nexus has exits to the north, south, east, and west. Those all lead to corridors with access to external conventional staircases. The internal staircases in the power supply nexus itself are much more exciting though. I’ve only known about them from my imprint before, so it’s thrilling to see the real thing.”

  I glanced at the staircase again and shuddered. Sakshi might think of it as exciting, but I felt that petrifying was a better description.

  “We’ll take the boring, conventional staircase,” said Lucas firmly.

  Sakshi sighed, but led the way back into the corridor where we’d arrived, turned left, and started climbing a gloriously solid staircase. “There are external lifts as well, but the lift system is out of action here at Hive Futura.”

  “We’re sticking to using staircases, both here and when we arrive back at the main Hive,” said Lucas. “It would be a huge mistake to set foot in a lift when someone is trying to sabotage the power supply.”

  “Can I ask something?” asked Forge.

  “Go ahead,” said Lucas.

  “I understand the need for multiple internal staircases, but why are there so many exits to corridors and sets of external staircases as well?”

  “I’ll explain that when we’re in the power control centre,” said Sakshi.

  We reached the top of the staircase, turned down a corridor, and walked on to another circular gallery. We were above the red central cylinder here, so there weren’t any radiants, but some technical displays were set into the wall.

  There was a point where part of the gallery extended into the empty space above the central core, rather like a diving board sticking out over a swimming pool. Sakshi went across to it, sat in a luxuriously cushioned chair, and gave an excited giggle.

  “The Power Controller supervises the whole power supply nexus from here. There’s a clear view of all the people on the workstations below, and they can look up and see the Power Controller too.”

  I didn’t want to try looking down at those galleries again myself. I linked to Sakshi’s mind, so I could see the view from her eyes, and react to it with her emotions. She was thrilled to be sitting in the Power Controller’s chair, seeing the ranks of galleries below her, imagining them filled with people hurrying to obey her every command.

  There was a moment of pure self-indulgence, where she fantasized about saving the Hive from a great power surge, and then she forced herself to continue with her explanation. “You can see down into the nexus core itself from here. That would be much more spectacular if the fuel rod was a full power one.”

  Sakshi paused to study the menacing glow at the top of the red central cylinder, and wistfully think how blindingly bright it would be with a full power fuel rod. “As you can see, the power control centre has access to the four internal staircases and four exits, the same as each gallery. You’ll notice a bulky metal object over the far side, which is the hoist system used to manoeuvre fuel rods into place in the central core.”

  She turned to look at Forge. “You asked the reason for having so many exits and external staircases. That’s because the floor and walls surrounding the entire power supply nexus form a reinforced containment vessel. Should the nexus power buffering system reach critical overload, the emergency siren sounds, and workers have less than a minute to leave before blast doors close to block off all the exits.”

  Sakshi pointed upwards. “The only area that isn’t reinforced is the ceiling. In the event of a power supply nexus exploding, the design is intended to channel the force of the blast upwards. That should mean it blows a hole in the roof of the Hive rather than ripping through inhabited areas. The design has never been tested in practice though.”

  “And our aim is to prevent it being tested now,” said Lucas. “Thank you for the guided tour, Sakshi. I think everyone’s got the idea of the layout, so you and I can go back to the aircraft hangar and leave them to carry on with their training exercises.”

  I felt Sakshi’s reluctance as she got up from the Power Controller’s chair. She and Lucas headed out of one of the exits, and I pulled back into my own head.

  “Alpha team, you can go down to gallery 10 and wait for the order to chase your target,” said Adika. “I’ll stay here with Amber.”

  “Do you want me to read Forge’s mind during this, and say what he’s planning to do?” I asked.

  Adika shook his head. “You and I will just be watching this training run. Its purpose isn’t really to catch Forge, just to get everyone used to moving around the power supply nexus, and I want to see how the Alpha team manage without any instructions from us.”

  “Does that mean we can choose our own leader for this?” asked Eli.

  “It does.” Adika went to stand next to the Power Controller’s chair. “Everyone set your ear crystals to listen only now, so Forge doesn’t overhear your plans.”

  I wasn’t sure whether that order included me or not, but I adjusted my ear crystal anyway. There was a mass clattering of feet as men hurried down the internal staircases. Adika gestured at the Power Controller’s chair and I went shakily forward to sit in it. I avoided looking down at the sheer drop in front of me, and studied the display screens set into the wide arms of the chair. They were blank, probably disabled in some way.

  “We’re ready on gallery 10,” Eli called up to us.

  “Forge, you can position yourself wherever you like and use whatever methods you want to evade capture,” said Adika. “At least, you can use any methods that don’t damage the power supply nexus.”

  Forge didn’t move.

  Adika raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re not exactly hard to find here, Forge. Don’t you want to position yourself somewhere else?”

  “I’m happy where I am,” said Forge.

  “If that’s what you want, then Alpha team can start chasing their target.”

  There was more clattering from below. The Alpha Strike team members were climbing back up the spiralling staircases.

  “The idea is that you try to evade capture, Forge,” said Adika pointedly.

  “I know.” Forge stayed where he was until the first of his pursuers reached the top of the staircases, then gave them a mocking wave, vaulted over the parapet, and vanished downwards.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  I panicked, instinctively linked to Forge’s mind, and found him casually swinging down from the girders of one gallery to the next. He paused when he reached gallery 7, and laughed when he saw the frustrated faces of the Alpha team members looking down at him.

  “Forge, the idea is that you try to evade capture, not plummet to your death,” Adika’s voice shouted from above.

  “I’m not going to fall,” Forge called back. “This place is like a colossal children’s climbing frame.”

  … and here they come, chasing down the staircases after me. Which leaves me a whole quarter of the gallery where I can just …

  I, Forge, was climbing up again now. The galleries were a mass of girders and support beams, each of them offering a selection of possible handholds. I joyously swung from one to the next, pulling my weight effortlessly upwards, and gave a
teasing salute to Eli as I passed by him. He made a rude gesture at me in return.

  I was on gallery 2 now, then gallery 1, and then heaving myself back over the parapet of the power control centre. I saw Amber in front of me, sitting in the Power Controller’s chair. Her eyes were closed which meant she was reading someone’s thoughts. Probably mine.

  I was Forge looking at Amber. I was Amber reading Forge’s thoughts. I was Forge thinking of Amber reading his thoughts. There was an instant of entangled confusion before I had the sense to move from Forge’s mind to Adika’s mind.

  Adika was leaning over the parapet, watching the Alpha Strike team running back up the internal staircases. This time they stopped when they reached gallery 2. Most of them spread out around the circular gallery, while four continued upwards, one heading up each staircase.

  Adika turned to Forge, and saw him throw a brief glance at the number of men standing ready to grab him if he tried climbing down past them, before laughing and sprinting off through an exit. A couple of minutes later, he reappeared on gallery 10, waving up at the Alpha team.

  Adika was simultaneously amused by Forge’s tactics and disapproving of the Alpha team’s response. They should have remembered the exits and external staircases.

  Matias was standing on gallery 1, next to one of the spiralling, internal staircases. He grabbed the pole at the centre of its spiral, and started sliding down it. Adika had been wondering who’d be first to work out that you could slide down those poles. He found it interesting that it was Matias.

  The rest of the Strike team saw what Matias was doing, and copied him. Forge looked up at the eighteen men sliding down poles towards him, and vanished through the nearest exit. The Alpha team braked to a halt, and started running up the staircases again to gallery 1. Adika was thinking that if he was Forge he’d wait for them to get back up to gallery 1 and …

  The thought ended in a hiatus as Adika laughed. Forge was back on gallery 10 again.

  I was aware of a nagging feeling of guilt. I frowned, pulled back into my own head, and sat there with my eyes still closed. We’d come here so everyone could learn to move around a power supply nexus, and that included me. In theory, I wouldn’t need to enter a nexus during the chase after Mars, I’d be stationed somewhere outside it with my bodyguards, but unexpected things could happen during emergency runs.

  I couldn’t climb those nightmare spiralling staircases, but I’d successfully walked the circuit of gallery 1. I should be able to adjust to looking at the view from this chair through my own eyes, instead of sheltering behind the emotions of others.

  I took a tight grip on the arms of my chair, told myself it was impossible for me to fall, opened my eyes, and looked cautiously over the parapet. The Alpha team were on gallery 1, only a level below me. I focused on them rather than the sheer drop down to gallery 10.

  “Waste this!” said Eli. “We’ll all go back to gallery 10 again, and repeat the herding upwards manoeuvre, but covering both the internal and external staircases.”

  I shuddered as I watched the Alpha team sliding down the poles of the staircases. Forge saw them coming, and vanished out of an exit like before, but this time he reappeared on gallery 1.

  “Having fun, Forge?” Adika called down to him.

  “Great fun.” Forge stood watching as the Alpha team moved up towards him, and then stopped on gallery 2 like before. Four of them hurried off through the exits, four positioned themselves on staircases, while the other ten spread out round the gallery to block any attempt to climb down past them. As the four on staircases started moving upwards, Forge climbed a staircase into the power control centre.

  “Excuse me,” he said, as he sprinted past Adika to an exit.

  Three minutes later, Forge was back on gallery 10. Eli looked down at him, an outraged expression on his face.

  “How did you get there?” he yelled. “We had a man blocking each of the external staircases.”

  “I got into the vent system, and climbed down a ladder in that,” Forge called back.

  “Amusing though it is to watch this,” said Adika, “I think we’ll stop now.”

  “We can’t stop now,” said Eli. “We only need one more try to catch Forge.”

  Adika laughed. “I think you could keep chasing Forge all day, and still not catch him. Everyone, come up to the power control centre now.”

  He waited until everyone was gathered in the power control centre before speaking again. “I think we’ve established that it’s virtually impossible to trap Forge in a power supply nexus.”

  Eli nodded. “Forge has the advantage of being a climbing specialist. Mars should be much easier to catch.”

  “If it turns out that Mars works in a power supply nexus, then he’ll be so used to the staircases and poles that effectively he’ll be a climbing specialist too,” said Adika drily.

  “We’ll be able to shoot Mars though,” said Dhiren. “We can’t shoot Forge.”

  Eli grinned. “Now you mention it, shooting Forge is a tempting idea.”

  Forge laughed, but Adika remained grimly serious. “If Mars is inside the power supply nexus, we won’t be able to shoot at him. We can’t risk firing guns in an area packed with people and essential equipment. What will make the real difference is we’ll have Amber telling us what Mars is going to do before he does it.”

  He paused. “Now, our genuine target is attempting to sabotage the power supply nexus, so there’s an obvious risk of the power going out during the chase. I hope that everyone remembered their wristset lights.”

  Adika looked at me. I pointed proudly at the light attached to my wrist.

  “Forge, we’ll give you a moment to choose your position before I turn the lights out,” said Adika.

  Forge headed down one of the staircases.

  “You’re going to make us chase Forge in the dark?” asked Eli, in a wounded voice. “That’s unfair tactics.”

  “I hate to break this news to you, Eli,” said Adika, “but we can’t expect our targets to use fair tactics all the time.”

  “I know that,” said Eli, “but if we can’t catch Forge with the lights on then we definitely can’t catch him in the dark. I give up.”

  “Eli has decided to give up playing leader,” said Matias promptly, “so I’ll organize the next chase.”

  “I didn’t mean I was giving up as leader,” said Eli.

  “It’s too late to change your mind now,” said Matias. “You’ve tried, you’ve failed, and now it’s my turn to do the planning. When the lights go out, we’ll all slide down the poles to gallery 10, and I’ll explain our tactics.”

  “But …”

  Kaden patted Eli on the head. “Hush, Eli. It’s time to give Matias a chance.”

  Adika went across to one of the controls, and adjusted it. The lights went out, and there was an instant of total darkness before the narrow beams of wristset lights started appearing. I belatedly remembered to turn mine on as well.

  I heard the sound of moving feet, and then Adika and I were alone again. “Matias taking charge was an interesting development,” said Adika. “He was one of my candidates for the deputy team leader posts, but he’s been rather subdued since I chose to promote Rothan and Forge.”

  Adika peered over the gallery wall. “It’s awfully quiet down there, and judging from the lights nobody is moving around.”

  I made a rapid check of Matias’s thoughts. “Forge hasn’t turned his wristset light on. He’s hiding somewhere in the power supply nexus, so Matias has got the whole Alpha team staying still and listening for any movement that gives away Forge’s position.”

  “An interesting approach,” said Adika thoughtfully.

  I frowned. “You surely aren’t thinking of replacing Rothan? He’s supposed to be making a full recovery.”

  “Of course I’m not thinking of replacing Rothan, but the last few days have made it clear that I need to choose a fourth in command. Someone to act as a temporary replacement when either Rothan
or Forge is injured.”

  Adika hesitated before continuing. “Lucas’s priority, everyone’s priority, had to be helping you recover from your fragmentation issues, Amber. Now that you’ve achieved that, I’ve had a chat with Megan.”

  I pictured Megan’s reaction to him trying to talk her out of her baby plans, winced, and checked Adika’s mind to see how bad the damage was. I was stunned.

  “You’re getting married!”

  “Yes.” Adika smiled, the levels of his mind overflowing with self-satisfaction. “Megan feels we shouldn’t get married until after she’s had Dean’s child, but she’s agreed to announce our engagement right away.”

  … respect Hiveism’s idea that Dean’s spirit will have returned to the Hive, but Megan’s plan makes more sense to me. A legacy of a living, breathing son or daughter, possibly both if Megan has twins, is …

  … might have met Dean once or twice, can’t honestly remember, but he was Strike team too, my fallen brother in arms, so …

  … and then our own children. And if something went wrong before then, if a bad run took me the way one took Dean, it’s reassuring to know that Megan would do the same for me as …

  I pulled out of Adika’s thoughts, and back into my own mind. A minute ago, I’d been stunned to discover that Adika and Megan were going to get married. Now I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t expected this to happen. I’d known that Megan had been worried there’d be a gap in her life and that of her baby where Dean should have been. Adika would fill that gap, and as for Adika’s feelings … They’d been summed up perfectly by the words I’d just seen in his head.

  “My congratulations,” I said. “I wish you every happiness.”

  “Thank you,” said Adika.

  We watched the wristset lights below us. What had been a terrifying drop was now just blackness with scattered dots of light. Sometimes those dots were still. Sometimes there was a slow, purposeful, mass movement. Sometimes a single light would rush from one spot to another.

  “I wanted to give Matias a chance to prove his leadership ability,” said Adika eventually, “but we really need to get back to the hangar and …”