The Mandel Files, Volume 2: The Nano Flower

  Greg didn’t like the implications rising out of his subconscious. Scare images, every third-rate channel horror show he’d ever seen. The gritty conviction in Royan’s mind acting as reinforcement to his own paranoia. When he reviewed the Hexaëmeron’s vaporous thoughts he found only detached serenity. A long time ago, when Philip Evans’s thoughts had been shifted into his NN core, Greg had tried to use his espersense on the new bioware entity. He had got the same composed aloofness then, an inability to become involved, not emotionally, anyway. Problems were an abstract. He wasn’t sure the Hexaëmeron qualified as a living thing.

  ‘If it came to that,’ Greg said slowly, ‘Clifford Jepson’s people reaching you first – surely you’d use the gamma mines anyway. I mean, they’d kill you to set the Hexaëmeron free, so by using the mines you could at least take it, and some of them with you.’

  ‘Maybe. That’s one of the reasons I’m bloody glad it’s you and Snowy who arrived. You see, you only really need one cell, no, one complete gene sphere, and the whole thing starts over. That’s what you must understand before you make your decision.’

  ‘Decision?’ Julia asked in a dead tone.

  ‘Yes, Snowy. It’s all or nothing. If you chose against the Hexaëmeron, then the entire disseminator plant must be destroyed. Every cell and microbe. If not, then the Hexaëmeron will be resurrected one day. Maybe not intentionally, but it’ll happen. That’s why the gamma mines are a last resort; they wouldn’t end the problem, only the more immediate part of it. Of course, if I had triggered them, I hoped you’d question why I felt I had to. That way you’d exhibit a lot more caution with the disseminator plant cells that were left. After all, it’s only my stupidity with this one-man-band act which has put everyone in such a ridiculous situation in the first place.’

  ‘Yes,’ Julia drawled.

  It wasn’t the answer Royan wanted, he was looking for sympathy. Greg could sense the anguish peak in his mind.

  Abruptly, he was aware of another mental voice, a cry of pain and rage, toxic with shock. Suzi.

  39

  Suzi saw the rock wall lurch forward, then disintegrate into a thousand flying chunks. The wave behind it held together until it was halfway across the village cave. She was dropping to the floor as soon as the first motion began, grabbing the mouth of the crack. Her photon amp gave her a single glimpse of the debris ploughed up by the leading edge of the wave, a line of foam, stones, muscle-armour suits, scorched saplings, and burnt remnants of the huts and their furnishings, all bearing down on her at a terrific speed.

  It hit, blinding her sensors. She was suddenly, frighteningly confined in a padded iron maiden, unable to see, unable to feel, unable to hear. Something solid cannoned into her, a very muffled thud. The suit shifted position slightly. Yellow and green graphics winked up, an outline of the suit, showing her the damage on her left side, the metalloceramic had been weakened by the impact, there was a dent, some of the chest muscle bands were inoperative. Her implant began a suit systems-status review. She clung to the details, using them to fight off the hot claustrophobic panic erupting at the back of her skull.

  A timer was counting off the seconds below the suit outlines. Five seconds so far, it couldn’t be such a short time. A minute at least.

  She could feel a movement, something giving below her arms. It developed into a full-blown slide. The rock around the mouth of the crack was giving way. She lost her hold.

  Instinct made her want to curl up, tuck her head into her chest; but the armour prevented that. She ended up bending her knees as far as the muscle bands would allow, and folding her arms across her torso.

  Her inertial guidance display showed her she was jouncing back down the crack, impacts rattled her teeth and spine. The feed from the photon amp turned a deep grey, as if she was wrapped in pre-dawn mist, then there were flashes of blue, crimson streaks as the water threw her about.

  She bounced to a halt against a sharp corner, and the water sank down around her. It was smooth and fast flowing, icy black. She struggled against the current and made it on to all fours. Water was trickling down her left leg, inside the muscle bands.

  The suit ’ware was pushing out a fast sequence of status graphics. Suzi coughed, feeling sour creamy liquid in her gullet. Tight snaps of pain in her chest made it impossible to focus on any of the graphics. Her knee was hell; she thought the bioware sheath had torn.

  ‘Call in,’ Melvyn said.

  There was a string of responses, names and curses.

  ‘Suzi?’

  ‘Yeah, here, Melvyn.’

  ‘OK, everyone into the village cave. There were still some tekmercs left.’

  She climbed to her feet. There was very little light in the gash. Her infrared helmet beams came on, showing about five centimetres of water sloshing around her ankles. Where the hell had it all gone? It had looked like a small sea crashing into the village cave. Greg must be up to his neck in it. Wherever the fuck he was.

  The graphics were coming into focus now. Nothing seriously wrong, not with the suit; three muscle bands dead, power reserves OK, two sets of sensors on backup. The suit ’ware was already calculating new load paths for the remaining muscle bands. She could move, she could fight.

  Her mike picked up the blast of rip gun fire.

  ‘Two of them,’ the radio squawked. It sounded like Robbie. ‘Cave 3B, hostile and active.’

  ‘Got ’em.’

  ‘Isaac, let’s have some airbusters in there.’

  ‘Coming up.’

  ‘Lilian, launch a reconnaissance disk down 4C, Isaac thought he saw a hostile in it.’

  ‘Could be one of ours.’

  ‘No answer from Harris.’

  Suzi realized her rip gun was missing. She started to walk towards the village cave. The suit responded stiffly at first, almost as if she had to carry the weight herself. Then the ’ware finished reprogramming the muscle bands, and she began to pick up speed. It was a lot easier on her knee.

  ‘Dennis?’

  ‘No response from Dennis yet, Suzi,’ Melvyn said. ‘Did you see him?’

  ‘Didn’t see shit after that wall went.’

  The wave had scoured the village cave clean. The only thing she recognized at first glance was the stone staircase. Where the wall had blown out was a pile of big boulders. It looked like half of the lake cave beyond had collapsed. Two Solaris spots were intact, one of them swinging on the end of its wiring, rocking shadows across the walls. All that was left of the village was a line of burnt splintered wood and soggy reeds along the wall opposite the lake. Water was lying a couple of centimetres deep. Torn sheets of crumpled, saturated moss floated past. Fish were everywhere, jumping and flipping about.

  Melvyn was marshalling his remaining troops. She counted thirteen others surviving. Plus another two medic cases. One was already out of his armour, Neil, bruised and bloody. Three of the team were working to extract the second casualty from under a rockfall which had crushed his legs.

  There were eight dead tekmercs lying about, their armour inert. They looked as if they had been battered by the wave, the metalloceramic was badly scratched and dented. She saw Talbot Lombard, face down in the water, his jumpsuit charred, blackened flesh underneath.

  She walked over to Neil. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Boulder,’ he said. ‘Bastard rolled over me.’ She guessed he’d been given an infusion, his mouth had the slack look, face grey with pain.

  ‘Use your rip gun?’ she asked.

  ‘Sure, help yourself.’

  It was lying next to his bent armour suit. She picked it up.

  Weapons Integration: Konica Neutral Beam Rifle.

  The key on her left shoulder began to interface with the rip gun’s ’ware. Red target graphics appeared. She was whole again, size and strength no longer a disadvantage, equal to the rest of the world.

  It was time for the last deal with Leol fucking Reiger.

  Melvyn was handing out assignments, sending the active cras
h team members down into the caves and cracks, scouting for tekmercs.

  Suzi pulled the guidance package out of her suit ’ware, and used it to place the five troughs. There was no sign of them, not even when she went over to check, boots splashing the thin layer of water. All she found was flat rock. She stood where the third one had been, amid the contortions of dying fish, and looked back to the broken lake cave, trying to work out the angle the wave had hit the troughs. If she carried the line on, Reiger would have been swept against the wall thirty metres away. There were two possible caves there, 6B, and 7B. According to her suit ’ware they joined up in a big cavern fifty metres back, another wide cave leading off from the junction.

  ‘Melvyn, I’ll check 6B, OK?’ She got it in before he could assign her one.

  ‘Roger, Suzi. Do you want anyone with you?’ Something in his tone suggested he’d guessed the reason.

  ‘Nah,’ she said. ‘I’ll solo.’

  6B was a pinched oval passage, just under two metres high, five wide, laced with veins of tarnished copper. Her helmet scraped the roof as she walked towards the junction. The rock was slick with water, a steady rain of large drops pattered down from the roof. Light from the village cave illuminated the entrance, but the passage curved, and after ten metres she had to switch to infrared. The water level crept up her legs; she could see fish racing away ahead of her.

  She called up the map package, and bled in her suit’s inertial guidance read-out. When she was fifteen metres short of the junction, she killed the infrared beams, using the photon amp as a passive sensor. The image showed her pitch-black passage walls and faint neon-blue water, even the fish were blue blobs. No hot spots, but her field of view was very limited. If Reiger was in the junction cavern, the shit would make sure he couldn’t be detected from the passage.

  She took an airbuster grenade from the retainer loop on her waist, a seamless metallic cylinder fifteen centimetres long, six wide, with a locking ridge running along its length. It slotted into the latch rail on her left forearm with a solid click.

  Expedite Grenade Launch Program.

  The red targeting circles turned white. She brought her left arm up until the circles interlocked over the junction cavern entrance. Grey droplets were still falling from the roof, hazing the photon-amp image.

  Disengage Safety Lock. Set Fuse for Twenty Metres.

  The targeting circles turned violet and started flashing.

  Fire.

  The airbuster grenade streaked into the cavern, exploding into a seething energy cloud a metre below the roof. Stark white light stabbed back down the passage. She saw lightning tendrils whipping violently backwards and forwards, clawing at the rock outcrops above the water.

  The spent grenade canister was flipped off her forearm latch rail, spinning away. She moved into the cavern at a run, pushing her recalcitrant left leg hard.

  There was nobody inside. Little columns of steam were rising into the air. Dead fish bobbed on the surface of the water.

  ‘Not that easy, Suzi bitch,’ said Leol Reiger.

  She jumped with shock. He was using a general broadcast frequency. Her electronic warfare gear couldn’t locate the radio transmission source; rock did weird things with radio, bouncing it or absorbing it. But not much, he couldn’t be far away. She checked passage 7B quickly. Empty. That meant the cave at the back of the junction cavern.

  ‘I know it’s you, Suzi bitch. Because you know I’m in here, that’s why you let off the airbuster.’

  She clipped a fresh airbuster grenade on the rail.

  According to the map, the rear cave twisted to the left after fifteen metres. There was no data after that. She primed the grenade for twelve metres, then fished around for a loose rock.

  ‘Always hiding, Leol,’ she said. ‘But then, running scared is your scene. Right?’

  She crouched down, and lobbed the rock high across the entrance of the rear cave. Two rip gun bolts pulverized it in midair. But she was already diving underneath, twisting.

  Fire.

  She landed on her side, momentum rolling her, knocking the breath out of her lungs. Then she was up and racing for the cave, suit boots kicking up sheets of foam. The airbuster’s energy cloud was flaring, fingers of vivid white light pouring out of the entrance. As it began to dim she fired the rip gun up the cave, hosing the bolts around at random until the magazine was drained.

  Leol Reiger didn’t shoot back. She smacked a fresh power magazine into the rip gun, and walked forward. The cave walls were covered in bright infrared scars where the rip gun bolts had struck. Runnels of lava dripped into the water, sizzling loudly. Long twisters of steam rose up all around her, licking at the roof.

  There were two ways she could do it; rip gun firing the whole time, chewing up the cave walls and triggering any antipersonnel mines he’d scattered; or the quiet way. But he knew she’d be coming, that gave him an advantage.

  ‘Did Julia Evans get the nuclear force generator data, Suzi? Or is it still up for grabs?’

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ she said. ‘You and I can deal, snatch it for ourselves. Right?’

  The cave ended ten metres in front of her, a narrow jagged opening into another cavern. All the photon-amp image gave her was blackness, as if the universe ended beyond the opening. Reiger was in there, waiting; and he knew she had airbusters. She tried analysing it from his position. Hide under the water? It was almost up to her knees, and getting deeper. A side cave that gave him a line of fire on the opening she’d come out of?

  ‘You see anything wrong with that, Suzi? It’s worth billions. And you and I, we haven’t got a quarrel, not really. We just got hired by different people, that’s all. Did what we got paid for, shot the shit out of each other. We don’t have to do that no more, we can buy them with atomic structuring. Evans and Jepson, we can own them, Suzi.’

  The roof? Was he clinging to the roof? A muscle-armour suit could hold him up there effortlessly.

  Arm Loral Missiles. Target Image: Muscle-Armour Suit.

  She smiled. The Lorals could just give her the edge; he’d be expecting another airbuster.

  ‘Who said I was getting paid?’ she asked.

  ‘What? You do this for free? Like crap you do, Suzi.’

  She fed a flight path into the Lorals’ ’ware: into the cavern, then a loiter manoeuvre while the smart seeker heads performed their target acquisition, scanning with microwave radar and infrared. Once they locked on, Reiger would have to shoot them, revealing his position. If he didn’t, he’d be dead. Either way, she’d nail the shit.

  ‘Fuck no, not free, Leol. Something you don’t know.’

  ‘Oh yeah, like what?’

  ‘Friendship.’

  ‘Load of bullshit, Suzi. All tekmercs have is deals. You a real tekmerc, Suzi? You want to deal over atomic structuring? Or do you want to die?’

  ‘Bollocks to you, Reiger.’

  Launch Two Missiles.

  A blast of compressed air pushed the missiles out of their tubes, small triangle fins unfolded, then the solid fuel motors ignited. Her infrared image was momentarily overwhelmed by the twin exhaust plumes.

  ‘Shit, you bitch!’ Reiger shouted.

  Suzi was two seconds behind the missiles as she went through the opening into the cavern. The infrared radiance from the rocket motors lit up the interior like a pair of glare flares. She saw a roughly semicircular space, ten metres across. Above her, the roof was made up from giant cuboidal stone blocks, as if steps had been carved at some crazy inverted angle. Water came up to mid-thigh, slowing her movements.

  She saw the missiles curving upwards. There was a red corona shining out from behind one of the rock cubes, Reiger’s infrared signature. Her photon amp caught the squat black cylinder tumbling down. Airbuster grenade. Stupid! her mind yelled. Bitterness and fury welled up. She flexed her knees, and started to fling herself flat, the water might shield her from the worst.

  The airbuster detonated just as she hit the water. Her sight went
from misty blues and reds to glaring white, then black.

  There was no pain, no real feeling of anything. Her thoughts were sluggish, full of worries; about getting Reiger, and whether or not Greg had made it to the alien, and Andria who was far too innocent to be left to fend for herself alone. All of them mixed up, faces twisting together in a crazy kaleidoscope whirl until she wasn’t sure who was who any more. Shit but that airbuster must have fucked her brain good and hard.

  Suzi?

  She knew it was Greg. He was bringing pain back to her, suffering. Greg was crying in her mind.

  I screwed up, she told him. Reiger got me with an airbuster.

  Suzi, Suzi, I taught you better.

  Sorry, Greg. She could see the weirdest egg, translucent, white and pale blue, dark shape at the centre. Julia’s face, frightened and angry. Is that the alien?

  Yeah.

  Don’t look much.

  Julia’s getting it sorted, no messing.

  Great. Then the image began to slip away.

  Arm Loral Missiles.

  That was strange, she certainly didn’t have the mental strength left to load orders into the implant. But somehow her thoughts were being pushed up a very steep hill into her processor node.

  Target Image: Muscle-Armour Suit.

  Greg, was that you?