Ivanov turned to Louise. “Go!” he bellowed. “Get out of here.” He shoved her roughly with one hand, and pointed the anti-memory weapon down the corridor with the other. The beam flared brightly at the advancing legionaries.
Louise gripped the rim of the doughnut, looking directly at the funnel of slippery fabric around its throat. The whole idea of jumping into it was terrifying. Another scream rang out behind her. She took hold of the handle at the top of the doughnut, and swung her legs up, pushing them through the gap. And let go.
Fletcher had got one of Brent’s legs free when three possessed rushed him out of the duplicate stairwell door. He instinctively flung his arms towards them, white fire streaming from his fingertips. They thrashed about in the slithering flame, focusing their own power to send it skidding harmlessly over their own skin.
A streamer coiled round Fletcher’s torso. He had to drop his own attack to counter it. The red slash of the anti-memory beam fluoresced the water droplets barely an inch from his nose as Ivanov tried to provide covering fire. One of the possessed collapsed.
Ivanov was switching targets when a crossbow bolt ripped into his forearm, tearing out a chillingly long strip of flesh, exposing the bone.
Without muscles or tendons, the elbow joint flopped uselessly, hand opening to drop his compact machine gun. Blood gushed down to splatter the weapon’s dull metal.
When he glanced upwards, shaking the water and pain out of his eyes, he saw Fletcher writhing at the centre of five lightning forks being hurled at him by several possessed. At his feet, a badly scorched Brent heaved down a painful breath and raised his machine gun, firing round wildly, heedless of who the bullets struck. There was no sign of Dexter. None.
> Charlie decided.
Ivanov was never certain who was in charge of his body at that moment.
But he took two faltering steps backwards until the doughnut rim hit him just below his kidneys. Then he performed a fabulously well-coordinated back flip, and vanished head first down the chute.
Fletcher staggered to one side as Brent started shooting again. The possessed scrambled for cover, two diving through walls. Out of nowhere, a skillfully aimed ball of white fire plunged into Brent’s left eye socket, and the gun fell silent. Two spears of white fire immediately resumed their strike against Fletcher. He twisted painfully under the impact, waving his hand in the general direction one of them was coming from, about to retaliate with his own fire. A thin metal band clamped tight around his throat, and an electric current punched into him. It took every reserve of strength to prevent the excruciating energy from pouring like hot acid into his brain. Thought was impossible, instinct was all he had left. He slumped to his knees, the smell of frying skin thick in his nostrils. The anti-memory weapon fell from numb fingers.
“Enough.”
The current was switched off. Fletcher’s muscles lost their rigor, dropping him into a twitching heap. Breath was hard to find with the unyielding circle of metal digging against his Adam’s apple. His fingers scrabbled weakly against the collar.
“You just leave that alone motherfucker or I’ll zap you again.”
Fletcher blinked against the shower of water still gushing from the sprinklers, focusing a long pole that extended away from the collar. At the other end was a young man, not possessed, whose tongue lolled out of the corner of his mouth. “Hands down, come on boy, down they go.”
Fletcher removed his hands from the collar.
“Gooood boy,” the young man sneered. “Hey, Quinn, I got him for you. He been whupped but good.”
Quinn Dexter materialized next to Billy-Joe. The deluge of water never even touched his robe. “Well done. I owe you at least a countess and a classical actress for this one.”
Billy-Joe put his head back and howled in joy. “Yes sir. Gonna die from too much fucking.”
“Shame my old friend Louise got away.”
“No she ain’t,” Billy-Joe shouted excitably. He shoved the restraint collar’s pole into the hands of a startled Frenkel, who gripped it in reflex. “I’ll get her for you, Quinn. You see.”
“No,” Quinn said.
But Billy-Joe was already running for the evacuation chute.
“Billy-Joe!” the tone was ominous. Billy-Joe responded with a doltish grin, and dived clean through the doughnut.
“Shit!” Quinn exclaimed. He’d emphasised how much he wanted Louise Kavanagh as he led the possessed into the tower. And for all his loyalty, Billy-Joe was far too dumb to appreciate simple strategy.
Quinn couldn’t chase after the girl himself. Fletcher was regarding him with calculating ferocity. Captured, but hardly subdued. And there were too many questions he had concerning the soul-less bodies now sprawled inertly along the corridor. He snapped his fingers at a couple of the possessed from the Hampstead group. “You two, get down there and help him out.”
If she’d just had the time to read the instructions and pictographs on the side of the doughnut, Louise might not have been so frightened. The chute was an old idea, improved by the use of modern flextailored fabric so it could be used from almost any height. She slid down the first four stories with little resistance; then the fabric began to constrict around her, gently braking her fall. It was designed to be elastic in one direction only, making sure its length remained constant. The end would continue to dangle one metre above the pavement no matter how many people were inside the chute.
Louise was deposited gently from the end, not even having to bend her knees when her feet touched the ground. Her neural nanonics were back on line, with the adrenaline suppression program quickly damping down her shakes. She took a few unsteady steps from the tower, then looked up.
Faint sounds of conflict were drifting out of the open window far above.
A bulge was descending down the chute, putting her in mind of a guinea pig swallowed by a snake.
There was no time for her to reach cover before the person in the chute arrived. Louise gave the anti-memory weapon she was holding a blank look, then aimed it at the end of the chute.
A head cleared the rim, which surprised her. She’d been expecting feet.
Ivanov had gritted his teeth against the shocking pain from his arm while his neural nanonics slowly recovered on the ride down. When he slid out of the chute the axon block was established, cutting off all the impulses from the mangled wound. Physiological shock was more difficult to counter.
With only one arm to flail around with, he tumbled awkwardly from the chute as the hem released him. Louise rushed forward to help, only to gasp when she saw the state of his bloody arm.
“No,” Ivanov groaned. He rolled onto his knees, gripping the long wound tightly, trying to staunch the blood. “Go,” he said earnestly.
“But you’re hurt.”
“Doesn’t matter. You go. Now.”
“I …” she stared round in despair at the dark deserted streets.
“There’s nowhere to go.”
Ivanov’s expression altered, a subtle but definite change. “This is Charlie. Run, Louise. Run now. And keep on running. Go down the Holloway Road to start, there aren’t many of them in that direction. Shoot anyone you see. I mean it, don’t ask questions, just shoot. Once you’re clear, find somewhere deserted to hole up. I promise I’ll do what I can to save London. You know that, Louise.” He looked up. A bulge was sliding down the chute, already halfway down. “Now go! Please. Go on, leave. I’ll take care of them here. They won’t be following you for quite a while.”
Ivanov winked. Louise knew that was him, not Charlie. She nodded and backed off. “Thank you.” Then she was gone, running hard down the Holloway Road.
Behind her, Ivanov swung round to face the chute. He let go of his injured arm, allowing the blood to flow freely again. His good arm brought the anti-memory weapon up to point at the chute hem, just as Billy-Joe’s head popped out.
The fluorescent yellow frisbee soared high above the white sand. Haile ha
d to formshift her tractamorphic flesh into a long tentacle to catch it. Jay clapped excitedly, hopping about. “Throw it back, throw it back,” she squealed.
Haile’s tentacle curled round the rim, and released the frisbee with a fast flick. It flew back, travelling twice as quickly as when Jay threw it, tracing a perfectly flat trajectory.
The little girl had to jump to have any chance of making a catch. It hit her hand with a sharp smack, and she tumbled over onto the sand.
“Ouch!”
>
“Not half.” Jay scrambled up, shaking the tingling out of her hand. She gave the clubhouse along the beach a guilty glance. Tracy had started to warn her about the amount of times she was using the provider for medical aid when she went surfing, threatening to confiscate the board. Asking for something to ease her stinging palm would probably result in more scolding.
“Rest time,” she announced, and flopped on her towel.
Haile lumbered over and used her tractamorphic flesh to scoop out a shallow depression in the warm dry sand. She settled into it, emitting strong thoughts of grateful satisfaction.
Jay eyed the cooler box again, then looked back to the clubhouse. “What are they watching now?”
>
“Really? Where from?”
>
Jay sighed with impatience. Tracy kept telling her how momentous events were back in the Confederation. Privately Jay thought the way the old observers got into such a tizz over all the political shenanigans was stupid. All she really wanted to know was when it was all going to be over and she could see her mother again. Loads of politicians arguing about who they should ally their planets with wasn’t going to bring any sort of end to the crisis.
>
“I want to go home.” She hated how miserable and whiny she sounded.
>
“Huh!” Suffering quickly turned to a spike of anger. “As if it cares.”
> a distressed Haile said. >
“Right.” She wasn’t going to argue with Haile, it always upset both of them.
> Haile said with a note of hope.
Jay saw the old woman riding a chrome-blue air scooter towards them.
Several of the Village residents used the little vehicles to get about on, each one as individual as its owner. Tracy’s was a fat ellipsoid shape with a recessed saddle in the middle. Stubby triangular fins with red tail lights protruded from the rear third; for show Jay assumed.
There were also some positively anachronistic circular headlights on the front, like glass jewels. Tracy called it her T-bird.
Another thing Jay was banned from using by herself. She was convinced the sleek-looking vehicle could go a lot faster than Tracy’s maximum speed.
It glided silently through the air at about twenty kilometres an hour, keeping a good two metres above the ground.
Jay stood up, brushing sand from her swimsuit as the T-bird landed beside her.
“Sorry I’m late, poppet,” Tracy said. “Haile, my dear, you’ll have to look after yourself this afternoon. I’m going to take Jay to Agarn.”
“What’s Agarn?”
Tracy explained as they walked back to the chalet, the T-bird following faithfully behind. Agarn was another planet in the Arc, inhabited by a small number of Kiint. They didn’t involve themselves in the kind of life practised by the majority of the Arc, preferring more philosophical pursuits. “So mind your manners,” Tracy warned. “They’re a very dignified group.”
“Why are we going there?”
“The Agarn Kiint are slightly different from the others. I’m hoping they’ll intervene in our favour. It’s a bit of a last resort, but things are turning ugly in the Confederation. I’m worried the situation will result in a squalid kind of stalemate. Nothing will be resolved, which is one of the worst outcomes there can be.”
She inspected Jay’s clothes, a pair of khaki shorts and a blue T-shirt, with sturdy hiking boots. “You’ll do, quite the little explorer.”
“Why am I going with you?”
“So they can get a look at a true human.”
“Oh.” Jay didn’t like that idea at all. “Can’t they look at the pictures from the Confederation like you do?”
“In a way they already have. They haven’t turned their back on Corpus. If they had there wouldn’t be any point to visiting them.”
Jay just smiled. She still really didn’t understand Corpus.
Agarn didn’t have any buildings within sight of the teleport circle they arrived on. They were on the rolling foothills of a wide valley. It was kind of like the parkland of Riynine, but left untended for a couple of centuries. Lush emerald grass-analogue swamped the ground. Trees were twisting towers of clustered magenta bubbles. A dozen waterfalls poured over tall rock cliffs lining the valley, while every crevice was home to a stream, emptying into crater lakes that were stepped down the slopes.
Tracy looked round, dabbing at her forehead with a lace hanky. “I’d forgotten how hot it is here,” she murmured.
Jay put her sunglasses on, and they walked down to one of the crater lakes. Two Kiint were bathing just off the shore.
> Tracy said.
The Kiint raised a blunt length of tractamorphic flesh, and began to wade ashore. >
“Yes, thank you very much. Hello.” Jay pushed her sunglasses up as the Kiint reached the shore and walked out onto the thick grass-analogue. It was very similar to Haile’s parents, though she thought the breathing vents were angled steeper, and the legs were flatter.
> Tracy said. >
>
>
>
>
>
> She gestured at Jay. >
Jay put on her best bright smile for the Kiint.
>
>
> The Kiint turned its big violet eyes to the little girl.
>
“I want my mummy back, of course. I keep telling your Corpus that.”
>
“But you won’t help, will you. None of your kind will. I think that’s horrible of you. Everyone keeps saying how we’re not perfect. But do you know what Father Horst told me once?”
>
“It’s very simple and very smart. If you want to know if something is fair, then turn it round. So if you know us as well as you claim, and we were the ones with a thousand planets and providers and stuff, do you think we’d help you if we could?”
rent.>>
“Very clever,” Jay said. She folded her arms in a huff. “I know it’s possible to take possessors out of the bodies they’ve stolen. I saw it done. So why don’t you at least help us to do that? Then we could work out what to do afterwards by ourselves. That’s what you really want, isn’t it? For us to stand up for ourselves.”
>
“Not that. Father Horst exorcised Freya. He threw the possessing soul out of her.”
>
Jay launched into a description of the events that had taken place that fateful day in a small homestead on Lalonde’s savannah. Just retelling it made her realize how much had happened since, how much she’d seen and done. It also pushed her mother further into the past, making her even more remote. She finished the story, and a tear trickled down her cheek.
Tracy’s arm immediately went round her shoulders. “Hush hush, poppet. The possessed can’t reach you here.”
“It’s not that,” Jay wailed. “I can’t remember what mummy looks like anymore. I’m trying, but I can’t.”
> Fowin said. A provider globe appeared in the air beside Jay. It extruded a square of glossy paper. Jay took it cautiously. A picture of her mother was printed on one side. Jay smiled, tears forgotten.
“That’s her passport flek image,” she said. “I remember when we went to the registry office together. How did you get this?”