Close the iris to lock off that tunnel, and open the steel door, and you halt your enemy in his tracks. General Luc may be paranoid but he has good defences.
The cavern into which we’re led could hold Farlight cathedral. Maybe not its clock tower, but the main bit. And it has the same churchlike lighting and high ceilings. Even the grey walls rise in the same way.
‘You OK, sir?’ Shil asks.
I’m touching stone for luck without even realizing.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Never better.’
She scowls.
So obviously I grin.
And that’s how General Luc finds me a few seconds later, as he filters between scout cars, ignoring the salutes of those around him. ‘You,’ he says. ‘What happened to your lip?’
‘Fell over, sir.’
He scowls. ‘So did Sergeant Toro.’
‘Really, sir?’
The Wolf’s scowl deepens. ‘Be glad I need you . . . This is your chance,’ he adds. ‘Don’t waste it.’
‘To do what?’
‘Impress me.’ His tone says that should be obvious.
‘Why the fuck would I bother, sir?’ My gaze takes in his convoy of trucks and scurrying troops. ‘You’ve got enough . . .’ I look at Shil. ‘What’s the word?’
‘Acolytes, sir?’
No idea what it means, but she’s probably right.
Shades of grey camouflage my Icefeld. A fat tyre bites dirt to leave a trail of dust that must be visible miles away. A Wolf Brigade stencil decorates a fuel tank that’s really an ammo box stuffed with cartridges for an 8-gauge pump-action shotgun slotted into the holster on my tank’s right side.
Insects commit suicide so often I stop at the first village to scrape the screen clean. The village is broken and has only one bar. A man in the shoulder patch of a Wolf Brigade veteran looks up, sees my Icefeld through the closing door and decides to leave by a side exit. I guess his patch isn’t real.
‘Beer,’ I demand.
The cane shot comes free.
I eat most of their spiced nuts, drink a second beer and piss against a rusting car out back, because that’s what everyone else uses. The barkeep takes one look at the 5000 Octo note I slap down on the counter and his face goes white.
‘Sir,’ he says, ‘I can’t possibly . . .’
‘Give me a rag and a bowl of water to wash my screen. Keep the change.’
He’s grinning madly as the door swings behind me, so I guess the events in Farlight haven’t reached this far from the city. A boy wanders over looking for a lift to the next ville. When I shake my head he shrugs.
Children stare as I leave.
Since ruins outnumber people and this place is on a road so obscure it appears only as dots on my nav pad, I’m not surprised. From the Wolf ‘s Lair to Wildeside is not a ride people often make.
The general probably has some NCO logging every last piss and beer break. And I could make the trip faster, but I’ve been given a day to travel there, and another back and I’m not looking forward to arriving.
‘One-fifty miles,’ says the SIG.
A couple of hours at this rate. Maybe slightly less. Depends how many more stops I make. In my pocket is Vijay’s memory crystal. The one containing the download from Morgan’s data cores. Vijay is one step ahead of me. He knew where I was being sent, and wants the crystal delivered along with the Wolf ‘s message, discreetly of course. You probably know what discreet means. I have to be reminded.
The next village is so small it has no bar at all.
It has a rusty bike, however, so old it’s double-wheeled, one at the front and one at the back. The naked child who rides it forms his fingers into a pistol and shoots me as I pass. Maybe General Luc comes this way after all.
‘Sven,’ my gun says.
‘Yeah, I know . . . Concentrate.’
The wheel spins in grit as my road disappears.
Since I can see it up ahead this has to be flood damage washing out the blacktop. We skid and slide, until I get bored with that. A long patch of grey scabs a slope to my right, so I gun the Icefeld. Traction when we hit rock powers the bike forward and I’m at a crazy angle, dodging a boulder, when my hip shivers.
‘Sven,’ my gun shouts. ‘You want to kill yourself, just pull over and do it properly.’
Twelve-pot brakes squeal, and only the gyro keeps us level as my bike skids to a halt, leaving a strip of smoking rubber behind it. Clambering from the Icefeld, I undo my holster.
‘Look,’ the SIG says. ‘Let’s talk about this.’
A boulder explodes a hundred paces away. Splinters of rock buzz past my head like wasps. None hit, though. A second boulder explodes, then a third. When I run out of boulders I burn a thorn tree back to ash and then a bush.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’
Wisely, the SIG-37 keeps silent.
When I’m twelve and only just in the Legion I watch my lieutenant have a screaming fit. His CO, a boy half his age, has issued an order that gets twelve troopers killed. And though the CO would be within his rights to have Lieutenant Bonafont court martialled he does nothing.
Later, Lieutenant Bonafont tells me there’s a knack to losing your temper. You do it at the right time and in the right company.
For me, the right time is now, and alone.
We make the rest of the trip in silence. Although the SIG relents on the way into Wildeside village. ‘Roadblock,’ it says. ‘Danger seventy-eight per cent probable . . .’
That’s high to me.
‘Militia. Plus I’ve added a thirty per cent Sven fuck-up weighting.’
It hasn’t relented that much.
One of the soldiers waves me down as the other raises a rifle to cover me. It’s the old-model Kemzin with the short clip. He’d be more convincing if he remembered to jack the slide first.
‘Get off your bike.’
I shake my head, although I flip up my visor.
‘Debro around?’
Strangers on Wolf Brigade bikes don’t call Senator Wildeside Debro.
At least, not in the world they occupy, which is about to change beyond all recognition. In the way of these things, it will probably look and sound and feel and taste the same to anybody not bothered by the difference.
Unfortunately, Debro and Aptitude aren’t on that list.
‘Farlight was sacked,’ I tell them.
Mouths drop open. They stare at each other, wondering if I’m telling the truth. Wish I wasn’t. There are few things I’d wish away in my life, but I’d wish away the last week, and pay ten years of what’s left for the pleasure.
‘The Uplifted?’
Silver-skulled and ruthless, riddled with tubes and the virus. Our traditional enemies. You know where you are with the Uplifted and Enlightened. They want to kill us and we want to kill them. Even the militia can get their heads round that.
‘If only.’
Must be something in my voice.
‘General Jaxx was killed on Senator Thomassi’s orders. Half the city has been massacred. Men, women and children. Their houses burnt, their shops smashed, their warehouses ransacked. You will tell no one else.’
‘But OctoV wouldn’t-’
‘The emperor is dead.’
Shock slackens their faces. Both know what I say is true. No man would dare say that if OctoV were still alive. It has never occurred to them, just as it never occurred to me, that he would not still be there after we are all dead.
The ghost in my gun is no more OctoV than Leona was.
They are avatars. Subsets. Encased memories. I wonder where those definitions come from and realize it’s the kyp. Somewhere between the gun, the ghost and the kyp I’m floating in information.
‘Enough,’ I say.
Both NCOs think I’m talking to them.
Saluting, they step back and offer to escort me to meet Senator Wildeside.
The village is quiet, locked down with shutters tight and barred doors where bead curtains should be. An old woman sits on an upper balcony, resting a double-barrelled shotgun that is older than she is on her lap.
Her eyes follow me as I head for the square, riding no faster than the two militia corporals can walk. Up ahead is the arch to Debro’s compound. Another two NCOs occupy an encampment in front of it, made from sandbags.